WDSS-II: The Next
Generation

by J.T. Johnson

When NSSL's Warning Decision Support System (WDSS) is used in a National Weather Service (NWS) office for a period of two years or more, statistics show the lead time for tornado warnings increases from 9 to 17 minutes. For severe thunderstorm warnings, the lead time is extended from 16 to 22 minutes. These statistics were derived from four years of tests at over 14 sites around the country. As a result, the NWS has chosen to integrate WDSS into the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) as part of the System for Convection Analysis and Nowcasting (SCAN).

Since 1993, the Stormscale Research and Applications Division (SRAD) has worked to refine and improve the concept of WDSS. Its original purpose remains: to be a development and testing platform for new severe weather detection applications and innovative display concepts. Now SRAD is making a significant investment in the evolution of WDSS.

WDSS-II (Integrated Information) is a completely redesigned system. Our goal is to develop and test warning and short-term prediction applications that utilize all operational data that will be available in AWIPS. Thus the WDSS-II will ingest multiple WSR-88D, satellite, lightning, surface, and mesoscale model data. In addition, WDSS-II will cover the entire County Warning Area (CWA) of a forecast office (several WSR-88D's), rather than using a single radar as the primary source of information.

WDSS-II also sports a newly designed display with a Geographic Information System (GIS) and relational database foundation. The new display will continue to organize critical severe weather information, but the GIS infrastructure will merge weather and relevant geographic information such as streets, terrain, major landmarks, streams and basins as well. The relational database is designed to organize and streamline data and improve the storage of algorithm- and user-created information to be recalled later. Our goal is to prototype these concepts so they can be transferred to AWIPS once they mature and are proven useful.

NSSL is beginning the development of WDSS-II by building a prototype system in Norman (see graphic). The displays will be provided to forecast offices in both Norman and Tulsa.

The WDSS-II development is a major undertaking for NSSL/SRAD. The system is expected to serve as the life-blood of SRAD for the next several years by providing the means to test new severe weather detection and prediction applications that will assist NWS meteorologists with critical warning decisions.

For more information contact J.T. Johnson at: johnson@nssl.noaa.gov