Administrators |
| Administrators are the management that are staffed at each NWS office. Each of these individuals oversee certain behind-the-scene aspects of a forecast office, with the cumulative effect of ensuring that the office is capable of putting out the best forecasts that it can. |
Meteorologist in Charge (MIC) |
| The Meteorologist-in-Charge oversees office operations and ensures that everything is running smoothly. The MIC actively engages with other field managers and with Regional Headquarters to ensure that the forecasters have the capability and tools to effectively forecast. The MIC also handles the hiring of new staff members, as well as reviewing the performance of current ones. |
Administrative Support Assistant (ASA) |
| The Administrative Support Assistant acts as an assistant to the MIC. The ASA actively engages in handling public relations and inquiries. In support of office operations, the ASA also analyzes staff schedules, timecards, purchase and travel orders, human resources, mail, and telecommunications. |
Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) |
| The Warning Coordination Meteorologist is in charge of the warning program at the forecast office. This includes creating warning policy and insuring its adherence, coordination with emergency managers in our forecast area of responsibility, and verification of watches and warnings. The WCM is also active in community outreach, promoting weather awareness (particularly among schoolchildren) and informing the local community about NWS operations. |
Science and Operations Officer (SOO) |
| The Science and Operations Officer actively strives to improve the quality of NWS forecast products. The SOO aids in writing and developing new computer software to improve the weather forecast/warning process. The SOO also promotes forecasters to attend training seminars and complete web-based training modules to increase forecaster competence. This individual also conducts (or promotes forecasters to conduct) research studies so that we as a forecast office gain a better understanding of our weather. |
Observation Program Leader (OPL) |
| The Observation Program Leader manages the Cooperative Observer Program, a community of weather observing volunteers that serves as the backbone of the nation's climate records. These observers submit daily and monthly weather observations, and demonstrate the truly wide assortment of weather phenomena that we see due to large scale and local effects. |
Information Technology Officer (ITO) |
| The Information Technology Officer is in charge of ensuring the working order of all local computer applications and software. The ITO conducts regular maintenance of AWIPS and GFE as well as PC-based software. The ITO is also charged with the installation of new software and AWIPS builds. |
Electronics Systems Analyst (ESA) |
| The Electronics Systems Analyst oversees the Electronics Technicians, and collectively they ensure that all electronic and & communications equipment are in working order. This includes the Radar, Satellite, AWIPS, and meteorological observation equipment. |
Operations |
| The National Weather Service Forecast Office is staffed every minute of every day to routinely put out forecast products, advisories, watches, and warnings. To accomplish this, operations staff are often required to work rotating shifts. |
Lead Forecaster |
| The Lead Forecaster oversees forecaster is responsible for overseeing forecasting operations on a given shift. The five lead forecasters are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365.25 days a year. In addition to providing forecast guidance and experience to journeyman forecasters, the lead forecaster routinely issues Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts, maintains a constant weather watch and updates forecasts when necessary, and will generally issue weather warnings, watches, and advisories. |
Journeyman Forecaster |
| The journeyman forecaster typically is in charge of issuing the routine forecast package, twice a day. This includes the public forecasts, marine forecasts, and fire weather forecasts (during the summer season). Because of the sheer size of our forecast area of responsibility, we staff two journeyman forecasters each shift, one that forecasts the East domain and the other forecasts the West domain. |
Hydrometeorological Technician (HMT) |
| The Hydrometeorological Technician performs a wide variety of duties. The HMT answers meteorological inquiries during normal phone hours. The HMT also issues and quality controls climatological, hydrologic, and meteorological products. The HMT actively monitors the CRS, the Alaska Weather Line, and the status of the radars. The HMT is responsible for launching two upper air balloons a day, and aids the OPL in managing the Cooperative Observer Program. |
Meteorological Intern |
| The Meteorological Intern, alongside the HMTs, work the Public Desk, answering public phone calls and coordinating with the media to provide timely, accurate information to the community. The intern is also in training to become a fully qualified journeyman forecaster. Occasionally, the intern will sit with a forecaster and learn how to issue forecast products. The intern also completes a good number of training modules to gain forecaster competency. The intern training program generally takes around two years to complete. |
TV Meteorologist |
| The television meteorologist is in charge of the Alaska Weather show, broadcast live at 5:30 PM local time daily on KAKM-TV across the state. Alaska Weather is the only federally funded weather telecast in the United States and has been in production since 1977. Part of its success is due to the large number of aviators and mariners that depend on the program for its forecasts. Additionally, Alaska Weather provides the only source of weather information for parts of Alaska. To learn more, view the Alaska Weather homepage. |
Focal Point Programs |
| In addition to working normal operations, most meteorologists and staff members are focal points of specific areas of operations. These focal points tend to focus in on a specific area of service, with the intent of ensuring the service is in working order, to provide proper training to all staff workers for the service, and to develop new applications which in turn provide a greater service for our customers. |
Public Forecast Program |
| The public program deals with the forecasts that most people are accustomed to, with the weather outlook (including skies, precipitation, temperature, and winds) for the next seven days. Additionally, we issue daily forecast discussions which go into detail the reasoning behind the current forecast. Most of these products can be found on the internet, on the Alaska Weather Line (1-800-472-0391, toll-free number anywhere in Alaska), and on the radio. |
Marine Program |
| The Marine Program deals with marine forecasts (winds and waves) and observations sites in southern Alaska. Quality marine forecasts are of utmost importance to commercial fisherman, with two of the four largest fishing ports in the United States located in Southern Alaska. Cruise ships also depend upon accurate forecasts during the tourist season. Marine forecasts can be found on the marine page, on the Alaska Weather Line (1-800-472-0391), on the Alaska Weather broadcast, and on the radio. |
Aviation Program |
| The National Weather Service routinely put out Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs), which are localized forecasts of cloud cover, visibility, weather, and wind for the area immediately surrounding major airports. The Anchorage Forecast Office is in charge of seventeen such TAFs, issue routine forecast packages four times a day, and amend the forecasts as necessary. The Aviation focal point ensures that all meteorologists comply with forecast guidelines, deals with verification, and continuously strives to improve the quality of our aviation forecasts. |
Hydrology Program |
| In coordination with the Alaska Region River Forecast Center, the Anchorage Forecast Office monitors water levels of rivers and streams in SouthCentral Alaska, and issues warnings, watches, and advisories when flooding is occurring, or becoming imminent. The hydrologist focal point coordinates between the River Forecast Center and the Anchorage Forecast Office, and provides annual training for the forecasters to ensure proficiency in each of the various hydrological computer programs. |
Fire Weather Program |
| The Anchorage Forecast Office coordinates with the Bureau of Land Management in the issuance of fire weather products. During the summer season, forecasters issue routine fire weather forecasts, and Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings when the relative humidities drop low enough and when winds are expected to pick up. Additionally, some fire weather forecasters train to become Incident Meteorlogists(IMETs), who will travel to the location of a fire and give localized forecasts. |
Ice Program |
| The Anchorage Forecast Office is unique in that it is the only National Weather Service that employs an Ice Forecaster, whom routinely issues ice analyses and ice forecasts. These ice forecasts become crucial particularly during the non-summer months, as the extent of ice coverage is vital to commercial fishermen and residents living along the Bering and Beaufort Sea coasts. |
Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) |
| AWIPS is the powerhouse with which meteorologists in the National Weather Service go about their work. Run in a Linux operating system environment, AWIPS combines numerical model data, satellite, radar, and ground-based observations into a simple-to-use system. AWIPS also houses all of the forecast preparation software that meteorologists analyze. The AWIPS focal point is a computer-savvy individual that ensures the complex system is working correctly and efficiently. |
Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) |
| IFPS is the backbone with which forecasters issue public and marine forecasts. Every square mile in southern Alaska and the Bering Sea is divided into "grids." By making use of the Gridded Forecast Editor (GFE), forecasters assign each of these grids several meteorological values (for example: temperature, RH, significant weather, winds, etc). After these "digital forecasts" are completed, highly complex text formatters are run on the grid, which generate the more familiar text forecasts. |
Warning Generator (WarnGen) |
| WarnGen is a specialized software within the AWIPS environment to specifically generates "short-fused" warnings, including tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and flash floods. When a meteorologist makes the judgment call to issue a warning, the forecaster will draw a "polygon" in WarnGen around the storm in question, and where the storm is expected to track. WarnGen will then calculate cities and towns in the path of the storm and generate an areal specific text statement. |
WSR-88D Nexrad Doppler Radar |
| The Doppler radar is one of the more important tools in helping forecasters stay aware of active weather. Meteorologists undergo weeks of intense training in radar analysis and interpretation, particularly in the areas of high wind, hail, and potential tornadic activity. Additionally, the radar detection pattern can be changed to better detect light snow, and in the case of the Augustine Volcano event of early 2006, volcanic ash as well. |
Satellite |
| Satellite imagery is very important in analyzing the larger scale weather pattern. Weather satellites have three primary types of imagery: infrared, visible, water vapor, as well as several secondary imagery types. Satellite can be used as a basis to determine areas of fog, and precipitation where radar coverage is sparse. |
Mesonet |
| While the Anchorage Mesonet program is still in its infant stages, it has already garnered support across SouthCentral Alaska and is picking up steam. The Mesonet program consists entirely of volunteers and is designed to "fill in the gaps," where no airport automated systems exist. These volunteers transmit their weather observations to a secure server at the Anchorage Forecast Office, and is made publicly available on our webpage. Click here to see the most recent observations, and click here to learn about joining! |
Climate |
| Climate is one of the more understated programs in the National Weather Service. In coordination with the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), extensive time and effort is taken to collect, analyze, and perform statistics on surface-based weather observations. The Cooperative Observing Program also has a large input in the climate database. Not only is this information heavily relied upon in scientific research, the data is also used to give forecasters a bearing in their daily forecasts. |
Console Replacement System (CRS) |
| The Console Replacement System is a nationwide network of computers that ingests forecasts, watches, and warnings and synthesizes a digital voice for broadcast on the NOAA Weather Radio. CRS also generates the text crawlers on the bottom of television broadcasts upon issuance of specific warnings. CRS provides the fastest way for meteorologists to disseminate routine forecasts and non-routine warnings to the media and public. |
Upper Air Observations |
| Upper Air Observations, or Radiosonde Observations (RAOBs), serve as the backbone of all forecasting. Twice daily, a large balloon carrying a small weather sensor is launched into the atmosphere, measuring pressure, temperature, relative humidity, and winds into the stratosphere. The weather information is ingested into powerful supercomputers and solve complex mathematical equations to generate weather forecast models. |
Internet |
| The internet has become, in recent years, the primary means of weather information dissemination. The Anchorage Forecast Office homepage provides SouthCentral Alaska public, marine, and aviation forecasts, as well as other tidbits of weather information. We continually strive to improve the look-and-feel of our homepage, and welcome feedback and suggestions. |
Verification |
| Verification is one of the primary ways to continually improve the quality of our forecasts. The National Weather Service employs many meteorologists that research past weather events. Through this research, and through various other software that analyzes past events, operational forecasters gain more knowledge about how to forecast during certain weather situations and setups. |
Weather Service Office (WSO) Liaison |
| Alaska Region is unique in that it is the only National Weather Service area that utilizes Weather Service Offices (WSO's), as opposed to Weather Forecast Offices (WFO's), like Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. WSO's provide extra support to WFO's by being their "eyes and ears in the field," as Alaska is so vast that the WFO's can not truly know what is going on weather-wise without support in the more remote locations. The WSO Liaison pays station visits to the WSO's, and coordinates between the two offices so that meteorologists can put out better forecast products. |
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