01/12/20111

The Future of Wireless Weather

Where are NWS and the Enterprise Going?

NWS Partners Meeting

January 27, 2011

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Agenda

• Background and overview of issues• Panel discussion• Summary and wrap-up

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Goal

• Engage NWS, weather enterprise, and core partners (e.g., emergency managers) in discussions on how best to provide wireless environmental information services.

• Identify issues for further in-depth discussion in the Spring, if needed

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Target Audience for Wireless Weather Information

Ownership of wireless devices - 89% US population (June 2009, 276.6M subscribers)

• Government decision leaders and emergency managers – – Require timely, text and graphical information wherever they are,

through multiple channels of dissemination– NWS needs to know they are looking at same

data/products forecasters are looking at– Require tools to facilitate two-way information

sharing and decision support with NWS

• General public – – Want instant and reliable information on-the-go– Want information presented in clear, non-technical language– Seek corroborating information from many sources before acting– Threats need to be better personalized to ensure responsive action

is taken

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Current Mobile/Wireless Services

• Mobile Decision Support Service/ interactive NWS Alert System – Target Audience: NWS core partners (EMs, Gov’t decision leaders, media)– Alert Types: Sub-catastrophic, “usual” watch/warning/advisory for moderate to

high impact weather important to EMs

• FEMA IPAWS/CMAS (Commercial Mobile Alert System)– Target audience: General Public– Alert types : Cell broadcast of imminent/catastrophic threats (e.g., tornado

warning)– In development and scheduled for 2012; all major wireless carriers participating;

requires cell tower/phone upgrades

• Private Sector fee services– Target audience: businesses; public subscribers– Alert types: Value-added and custom alerts

• Private Sector free services– Target audience: General Public– Alert types: General weather info, all alerts

FEMA

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MOBILESector Relationships

Ale

rt T

ypes

Target Audience

Community Leaders

and Decis

ion Make

rs

(eg, E

Ms)

Subscrib

ing Public

,

Business

es

General P

ublic

Advisories: Anticipate, Respond

and Recover

Watches: Prepare for Action

Warnings: Urgent, Immediate

Action Required

KEYiNWS

Private Sector

IPAWS/CMAS

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NWS Guiding Principles

• Ensure NWS core partners have assured access to unaltered NWS products to facilitate communication with NWS forecasters – critical for decision support services

• Increase efforts to provide NWS information in standard formats/protocols to facilitate commercial provision of support services for general public

• Foster wide availability of NWS weather warnings and environmental information by diverse means

• Trademarks/copyrights– NWS data/products are not copyrighted and can be used freely – NWS encourages use of trademarked name/logo to identify unaltered

NWS products– Cannot assert your own copyright for NWS products– Use of NWS trademarks does not imply affiliation/endorsement

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Constraints on NWS for Providing Mobile Services

Resource challenges• Cost to provide a national guaranteed level of

wireless service delivery to the general public

• Cost for ongoing development and support of device-specific “Apps” to deliver NWS information

• Cost for maintaining/supporting direct email services to general public

Policy/Legal• NWS will only consider approaches that do not in

effect give anyone exclusive rights to NWS products.

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Achieving a BalancedWay Forward

9DRAFT

NWS focus on core partners; limited mobile service for

public

NWS supports commercial mobile

development through information centric

services

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Balanced Way Forward

• NWS focus on core partners– Continue direct service to core partners – iNWS– NWS web standards sensitive to access by mobile devices

(vs. apps designed for specific devices)

• Support commercial sector with information centric approach– Make information more accessible and lower cost of entry

• Use of common data formats/protocols; data easier to work with• Developers’ site/Wiki for better documentation of info feeds and

direct feedback to NWS• Application Programming Interface (API)• Use of CAP standard and push

– Greater visibility for Partners• Prominent public listing of mobile services (e.g., apps) that use

official NWS feeds (unaltered products, clearly labeled NWS content)

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Panel Discussion

What do you think?

How else can Weather Enterprise best work together in providing mobile/ wireless weather services?

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Backup/Details

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Emerging Government Mobile Alert Services

iNWS (NWS) CMAS (FEMA)• Serves community decision leaders.

• Provides information relevant to user defined areas.

• Users receive alerts for NWS products to which they subscribe.

• SMS message up to 160 characters

• Embedded link to more info - full text, impacts, warning outline, storm track, radar, etc.

• Serves general public.

• Provides information relevant to user’s current location – cell tower

• Users only receive alerts for “imminent threats.”

• Message limited to 90 characters.

• Embedded links now allowed.

• Future capabilities TBD.

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NWS Use of XML Standards Supports Mobile Development

• Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)– Emergency/alert information

• Really Simple Syndication (RSS)/Atom feeds– Allow subscribers to receive timely updates and

aggregate feeds from many sites into one place

• Keyhole Markup Language (KML/KMZ)– Expresses geographic annotation and

visualization on 2D and 3D maps

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Benefits of XML for Commercial and Public Safety Interests

• Commercial Weather Sector– Low cost of entry

– Can make many products from same easy to parse message

– Minimal issues when NWS makes changes

• Public Safety– CAP to serve as basis for FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert

and Warning System (IPAWS) and CMAS

– Enables/facilitates mobile decision support

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Proposed Support for Private Sector Wireless Services

• NWS-hosted directory of wireless environmental information applications and related services (i.e., vendor name, type of service, description, contact information, etc.)

• One-stop-shop or wiki for developers– NWS data types (i.e., CAP, RSS, KMZ/KML, etc.)– Where to get the data– Sample mobile applications showing how to integrate the

data– Related documentation