[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                       THE FUTURE OF FORECASTING:
                    BUILDING A WEATHER-READY NATION
                             ON ALL FRONTS

=======================================================================

                                     
                                     
                                     

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            OCTOBER 14, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-34

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

                                     
                                     
                                     
 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
				                                         
                                     
                                     

       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov  
       
                             _________
                              
                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                 
45-792 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2023 
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                VACANCY
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas 






















                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                            October 14, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................     9
    Written Statement............................................    10

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    11
    Written Statement............................................    12

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Louis Uccellini, Assistant Administrator for Weather Services 
  and Director of the National Weather Service (NWS), National 
  Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
    Oral Statement...............................................    14
    Written Statement............................................    17

Mr. Cardell Johnson, Acting Director, Natural Resources and 
  Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
    Oral Statement...............................................    30
    Written Statement............................................    32

Mr. John Werner, President, National Weather Service Employees 
  Organization (NWSEO)
    Oral Statement...............................................    53
    Written Statement............................................    56

Mr. Erik Salna, Associate Director for Education and Outreach, 
  International Hurricane Research Center, Extreme Events 
  Institute, Florida International University
    Oral Statement...............................................    64
    Written Statement............................................    66

Discussion.......................................................    75

             Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Louis Uccellini, Assistant Administrator for Weather Services 
  and Director of the National Weather Service (NWS), National 
  Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)..................   116

Mr. Cardell Johnson, Acting Director, Natural Resources and 
  Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).......   125

Mr. John Werner, President, National Weather Service Employees 
  Organization (NWSEO)...........................................   126

Mr. Erik Salna, Associate Director for Education and Outreach, 
  International Hurricane Research Center, Extreme Events 
  Institute, Florida International University....................   128

            Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Letter submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives
    International Association of Emergency Managers--USA Council.   134

Report submitted by Representative Sean Casten, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    ``July Temperature Update: Faustian Payment Comes Due,'' 
      James Hansen and Makiko Sato...............................   137

Report submitted by the Government Accountability Office
    ``National Weather Service--Additional Actions Needed to 
      Improve the Agency's Reform Efforts''......................   141

Letter submitted by American Property and Casualty Insurance 
  Association (APCIA)............................................   195

 
                       THE FUTURE OF FORECASTING: 
                    BUILDING A WEATHER-READY NATION 
                             ON ALL FRONTS 

                              ----------                              


                       THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2021

                          House of Representatives,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., via 
Zoom, Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson [Chairwoman of the Committee] 
presiding.




[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Chairwoman Johnson. OK, good morning. The meeting will come 
to order, and without objection, the chair is authorized to 
declare recess at any time.
    Before I deliver my opening remarks, I wanted to note that 
today, the Committee is meeting virtually. This hearing will 
come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to 
declare recess at any time, and before I deliver my opening 
remarks, I wanted to note that today, the Committee is meeting 
virtually.
    I wanted to announce a couple of reminders to Members about 
the conduct of this hearing. First, Members should keep their 
video feed on as long as they are present in the hearing. 
Members are responsible for their own microphones. Please also 
keep your microphones muted unless you are speaking. Finally, 
if Members have documents they wish to submit for the record, 
please email them to the Committee Clerk, whose email address 
was circulated prior to the meeting.
    Good morning, and thank you to all of our witnesses for 
joining us here today.
    In April 2011, a tornado outbreak tore through Mississippi, 
Alabama, and neighboring States. Over 300 lives were lost. This 
was despite an average lead time of over 20 minutes before the 
tornados arrived. What went wrong? The answer lies largely in 
the way risk was communicated to communities, and how they 
responded. These tragedies spurred the National Weather Service 
(NWS) to begin implementing its plan to build a ``Weather-Ready 
Nation.'' The vision was to make communities ready, responsive, 
and resilient to such threats.
    Over eight years later, October 2019, a tornado outbreak 
tore through the South-Central USA. An EF-3 tornado hit the 
Dallas suburbs and became the costliest tornado in Texas 
history. However, unlike the tornados from 2011, there were no 
life-threatening injuries or deaths. While luck certainly 
played a role, the real difference was the ability of the 
Weather Service forecasters to communicate the risk so that 
communities could prepare. This is called Impact-Based Decision 
Support Services, or IDSS. IDSS is just one of the many 
improvements that have been made at the National Weather 
Service over the past decade.
    The Weather Service has built important relationships with 
its core partners. These include emergency managers, academia, 
the private sector, and State, local, and Tribal governments. 
These partners work hand-in-hand with Weather Service 
forecasters to provide the public with critical, actionable 
weather and climate information. Developments in science and 
technology are propelling us into the future of weather 
forecasting. Additionally, the Weather Service's forecast 
accuracy has improved markedly.
    We owe much of this progress to our distinguished witness, 
Dr. Louis Uccellini. Dr. Uccellini will be retiring as Director 
of the National Weather Service at the end of this year. He has 
served our country for 43 years. For the past 32 years, he has 
been at the National Weather Service. And for the past nine 
years, he has served as its Director. He has had an impressive 
career, and whoever succeeds him as Director will have very 
large shoes to fill.
    But despite the successes of the Weather Service under his 
tenure, there is still work to be done. Over the past decade, 
there have been numerous external reviews of Weather Service 
work force and operations. Each report outlined areas of 
improvement and growth, and some issued recommendations. We 
will discuss some of the recent Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) reports on the Weather Service today. I commend 
the Weather Service for its willingness to address the findings 
of these reports and continuously working to improve.
    World-class scientists are the beating heart of the Weather 
Service. However, over the past decade, there has been a high 
vacancy rate, especially among meteorologists. This has led to 
stress, fatigue, and reduced morale. The Weather Service has 
taken steps to address work force issues, but more work must be 
done. I cannot emphasize enough that the Committee would like 
to see these vacancies filled, and they must be filled soon.
    Today, we'll discuss progress at the Weather Service and 
where there is still room for growth. We'll examine how to best 
position the Weather Service to provide robust IDSS across the 
country. And we'll discuss what additional resources the 
Weather Service may need to ensure that we are a truly Weather-
Ready Nation.
    I hope today's hearing will serve as a roadmap for the next 
Director of the National Weather Service, and I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses.
    [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Good morning, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us 
here today.
    In April 2011, a tornado outbreak tore through Mississippi, 
Alabama, and neighboring states. Over 300 lives were lost. This 
was despite an average lead time of over 20 minutes before the 
tornados arrived. What went wrong? The answer lies largely in 
the way risk was communicated to the communities, and how they 
responded. These tragedies spurred the National Weather Service 
to begin implementing its plan to build a ``Weather-Ready 
Nation.'' The vision was to make communities ready, responsive, 
and resilient to such threats.
    Over 8 years later in October 2019, a tornado outbreak tore 
through the South-Central U.S. An EF3 tornado hit the Dallas 
suburbs and became the costliest tornado in Texas history. 
However, unlike the tornadoes from 2011, there were no life-
threatening injuries or deaths. While luck certainly played a 
role, the real difference was the ability of the Weather 
Service forecasters to communicate the risk so communities 
could prepare. This is called Impact-Based Decision Support 
Services - or IDSS. IDSS is just one of the many improvements 
that have been made at the National Weather Service over the 
past decade.
    The Weather Service has built important relationships with 
its core partners. These include emergency managers, academia, 
the private sector, and State, local, and Tribal governments. 
These partners work hand-in-hand with Weather Service 
forecasters to provide the public with critical, actionable 
weather and climate information. Developments in science and 
technology are propelling us into the future of weather 
forecasting. Additionally, the Weather Service's forecast 
accuracy has improved markedly.
    We owe much of this progress to our distinguished witness, 
Dr. Louis Uccellini. Dr. Uccellini will be retiring as Director 
of the National Weather Service at the end of the year. He has 
served our country for 43 years. For the past 32 years, he has 
been at the National Weather Service. And for the past 9 years, 
he has served as its director. He has had an impressive career, 
and whoever succeeds him as Director will have very large shoes 
to fill.
    But despite the successes of the Weather Service under his 
tenure, there is still work to be done. Over the past decade, 
there have been numerous external reviews of Weather Service 
workforce and operations. Each report outlined areas of 
improvement and growth, and some issued recommendations. We 
will discuss some of the recent Government Accountability 
Office reports on the Weather Service today. I commend the 
Weather Service for its willingness address the findings of 
these reports and continuously working to improve.
    World-class scientists are the beating heart of the Weather 
Service. However, over the past decade, there has been a high 
vacancy rate, especially among meteorologists. This has led to 
stress, fatigue, and reduced morale. The Weather Service has 
taken steps to address these workforce issues, but more work 
must be done. I cannot emphasize enough that the Committee 
would like to see these vacancies filled, and they must be 
filled soon.
    Today, we'll discuss progress at the Weather Service and 
where there is still room for growth. We'll examine how to best 
position the Weather Service to provide robust IDSS across the 
country. And we'll discuss what additional resources the 
Weather Service may need to ensure that we are a truly Weather-
Ready Nation.
    I hope today's hearing will serve as a roadmap for the next 
Director of the National Weather Service. I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back.

    Chairwoman Johnson. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lucas, our 
distinguished Ranking Member of the Committee, for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding 
today's hearing, and thank you to all of our witnesses for 
offering your insight into our Nation's weather forecasting 
future.
    As you know, improving our forecasting abilities and making 
our forecasts even more useful has been a high priority for me 
as Ranking Member of this Committee, and I appreciate Dr. 
Uccellini sharing his commitment and has dedicated his career 
at the National Weather Service to better serving the public. 
On a daily basis, the National Weather Service tools and 
services produce critical information to businesses across the 
country. Around this time of year in Oklahoma, NWS forecasts 
alert farmers and ranchers to the first frost of the season, 
helping us plan for weeks ahead. Towns and cities rely on 
forecasts to plan for inclement weather, and forecasts issued 
by local weather offices provide lifesaving information in the 
event of severe weather.
    In recent years, NWS has focused on efforts to become a 
``Weather-Ready Nation.'' This was primarily done by 
implementing Impact-Based Decision Support Services where the 
National Weather Service forecast offices provide forecast 
advice to local officials before and during a weather-related 
emergency. These efforts have improved communication with the 
public, helping families better understand the effects a 
weather event can have on them personally. Dr. Uccellini and 
the National Weather Service have also focused on the 
implementation of the National Blend of Models, a method which 
improved the speed and accuracy at which meteorologists can 
issue alerts. By bringing together both the NWS and non-NWS 
numerical weather prediction data, an accurate and consistent 
model can be a starting point for forecasters across the 
Nation.
    But despite the many successes of the National Weather 
Service, no government office is perfect, and challenges always 
remain. At the forefront of my mind is how NOAA (National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NWS can more 
efficiently utilize and engage in commercial data buys to 
improve our Nation's weather models. As made evident by the 
National Blend of Models, a U.S. weather model cannot achieve 
their full capacities without the support of private weather 
enterprise.
    Another challenge we are facing is inspiring and training 
the next generation of STEM (science, technology, engineering, 
and mathematics) and meteorology students. Improving our 
models, data, and information won't help us if there are no 
professionals to utilize them in the next decade. That is why I 
am pleased to welcome Mr. Erik Salna, Associate Director of 
Education Outreach for the International Hurricane Research 
Center (IHRC) at Florida International University (FIU), to the 
witness panel. As a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador, and 
someone who works closely with university students, he can 
offer a unique perspective on the future of forecasting in our 
Nation, especially when it comes to engaging the community and 
the next generation work force.
    Before I close, I want to thank Dr. Uccellini for his 
decades of service to the Federal Government. After a 43-year 
career in public service, he'll be retiring at the end of the 
new year--at the start of the new year, I should say. This 
change in leadership makes now an opportune time to reflect on 
the progress we've made and what challenges the National 
Weather Service should tackle next.
    I hope to use today's hearing to learn from all of our 
expert witnesses on what the next challenges might be, and with 
that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding today's hearing. 
And thank you to all our witnesses for offering your insight 
into our nation's weather forecasting future. As you know, 
improving our forecasting abilities and making our forecasts 
even more useful has been a high priority for me as Ranking 
Member of this Committee. I appreciate that Dr. Uccellini 
shares this commitment and has dedicated his career at the 
National Weather Service to better serving the public.
    On a daily basis, NWS tools and services produce critical 
information to businesses across the nation. Around this time 
of year in Oklahoma, NWS forecasts alert farmers and ranchers 
to the first freeze of the season, helping us plan for the 
weeks ahead.
    Towns and cities rely on forecasts to plan for inclement 
weather. And the forecasts issued by local weather offices 
provide lifesaving information in the event of severe weather.
    In recent years, NWS has focused on efforts to become a 
Weather-Ready Nation. This has primarily been done by 
implementing Impact-based Decision Support Services, where NWS 
forecast offices provide forecast advice to local officials 
before and during a weather-related emergency. These efforts 
have improved communication to the public, helping families 
better understand the effects a weather event may have on them 
personally.
    Dr. Uccellini and NWS have also focused on the 
implementation of the National Blend of Models, a method which 
improved the speed and accuracy at which meteorologists can 
issue forecasts. By bringing together both NWS and non-NWS 
numerical weather prediction data, an accurate, consistent 
model can be a starting point for forecasters across the 
nation.
    But despite the many successes of NWS, no government office 
is perfect, and challenges always remain. At the forefront of 
my mind is how NOAA and NWS can more efficiently utilize and 
engage in commercial data buys to improve our nations' weather 
models. As made evident by the National Blend of Models, U.S. 
weather models cannot achieve their full capabilities without 
support from the private weather enterprise. Another challenge 
we are facing is inspiring and training the next generation of 
STEM and meteorology students. Improving our models, data, and 
information won't help us if there are no professionals to 
utilize them in the next decade.
    That is why I am pleased to welcome Mr. Erik Salna, 
Associate Director for Education and Outreach for the 
International Hurricane Research Center at Florida 
International University, to the witness panel.
    As a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador and someone who works 
closely with university students, he can offer a unique 
perspective on the future of forecasting in our nation, 
especially when it comes to engaging the community and the next 
generation workforce.
    Before I close, I'd like to thank Dr. Uccellini for his 
decades of service to the federal government. After a 43-year 
career in public service, he will be retiring at the start of 
the new year. This change in leadership makes now an opportune 
time to reflect on the progress we've made and what challenges 
NWS should tackle next.
    I hope to use today's hearing to learn from all of our 
expert witness on what the next challenges might be. With that, 
Madam Chair, I yield back.

    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Lucas.
    If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 
point.
    At this time, I'd like to introduce our witnesses. First, 
the esteemed Dr. Louis Uccellini. Dr. Uccellini is the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Assistant 
Administrator for Weather Services, and Director of the 
National Weather Service. In this role, he is responsible for 
the day-to-day civilian weather operations for the United 
States, its territories, adjacent waters, and ocean areas. 
Prior to this position, he served as the director of National 
Centers for the Environmental Prediction, the NCEP, for 14 
years. He was responsible for directing and planning the 
science technology and operations related to NCEP for nine 
centers. He was the director of National Weather Service's 
Office of Meteorology from 1994 to 1999, chief of the National 
Weather Service's Meteorological Operations division from 1989 
to 1994, and section head for the mesoscale analysis and 
modeling section at the Goddard Space Flight Center's 
Laboratory for Atmospheres from 1978 to 1989.
    Our next witness is Mr. Cardell Johnson. Mr. Johnson is an 
acting director of GAO's Natural Resources and Environment 
Team. He oversees work on the Federal Government's management 
of public lands and water resources, including national parks 
and forests, mineral resources, coastal and marine resources, 
endangered species, water supply, and National Weather Service 
programs. Prior to joining GAO, Mr. Johnson served as the 
director of quality assurance at USAID's (United States Agency 
for International Development's) Office of Inspector General 
where he developed organization's first quality assurance 
framework. He also worked at the EPA (Environmental Protection 
Agency) as a senior budget analyst and director of performance 
improvements at EPA's Office of Inspector General.
    Our third witness, Mr. John Werner. Mr. Werner is president 
of the National Weather Service Employees Organization (NWSEO), 
as well as the lead forecaster of the Weather Forecast Office, 
the WFO, in Mobile, Alabama. He has served as the NWSEO 
president for the past two years, in addition to serving as 
lead forecaster of WFO Mobile. He also managed the office of 
hydrology program and other program areas including radar, 
marine, and aviation. Prior to joining the NWS, Mr. Werner 
served 24 years as a meteorologist in the United States Air 
Force, where he held numerous positions, including the 
following: chief of Weather Station Operations, the Air Force 
Special Operations Command, Directorate of Weather's Aerospace 
Scientist, and chief environmental simulations team at the Air 
Force Combat Climatology.
    Our final witness is Mr. Erik Salna. Is Mr. Gimenez here? 
OK. Well, would you like to introduce him?
    Mr. Gimenez. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and 
thank you, Madam Chair.
    I want to extend my warmest welcome to Mr. Erik Salna, the 
associate director of education and outreach for the Extreme 
Events Institute at the International Hurricane Research Center 
at Florida International University in Miami. FIU is a top-tier 
research university located in my district in Miami, and that 
has over $237 million in annual research activity. Mr. Salna 
personally has over 25 years' experience as a broadcast 
meteorologist, providing live continuous coverage for 
hurricanes, tornados, and flooding. At FIU, Mr. Salna has 
focused on education and outreach that helps reduce the impact 
of natural hazard events.
    I had visited the IHRC and seen firsthand their impressive 
research on storm surge, economic loss modeling, and wind 
engineering. In fact, their Wall of Wind is just one of the two 
NSF- (National Science Foundation-) supported facilities 
dedicated to wind research. Mr. Salna is also a full member of 
the American Meteorological Society, the National Weather 
Association. He earned an M.S. in meteorology from Northern 
Illinois University, and a B.S. in physical geography with an 
emphasis in meteorology from the University of Illinois.
    I look forward to hearing from Mr. Salna and how FIU can 
help assist Federal agencies improve weather forecasting in not 
only the near future, but also in future for our children and 
grandchildren.
    Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
    Now, as our witnesses should know, you will have five 
minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will 
be included in the record for the hearing [inaudible] spoken 
testimony, we'll begin questions and each Member will have five 
minutes to question the panel.
    We will start with Dr. Uccellini.

               TESTIMONY OF DR. LOUIS UCCELLINI,

          ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR WEATHER SERVICES

      AND DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE (NWS),

                NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC

                     ADMINISTRATION (NOAA)

    Dr. Uccellini. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking 
Member Lucas, and Members of this Committee. It is my honor to 
testify before you today on the current status of and future 
opportunities for the National Weather Service.
    To say I have seen significant change at the Weather 
Service would be an understatement. I entered the National 
Weather Service Meteorologic Operations Division in 1989. At 
that time, paper weather maps were still being used at the NWS 
operational centers, and at the center I came in to, there was 
no digital capability.
    Fast forward to today. We operate in a completely digital 
environment, accessing data from the entire weather enterprise, 
and providing advance numerical prediction guidance from a 
seamless suite of model systems ranging from short-range 
forecasts to seasonal predictions, covering the domain from the 
sun to the sea.
    The National Weather Service makes its life and property 
saving missions through the provision of weather, water, and 
climate services. A mission statement that includes analysis, 
forecast warnings, and now Impact-Based Decision Support 
Services delivered by our forecasters from Guam, the southwest 
Pacific Island States, to the middle Atlantic Ocean, and from 
Alaska to the Caribbean. That's about 1/3 of the Northern 
Hemisphere. We have made remarkable progress in predicting 
extreme weather and water events, now out to a week in advance 
in some instances.
    But as we learned from the horrific 2011 severe weather 
events, we also need to go beyond forecasts and warnings. We 
have to address the last mile to connect this information to 
decisionmakers, emergency managers, and public safety officials 
before, during, and after extreme events.
    From the tragic events in 2011, the concept of the Weather-
Ready Nation emerged and is now embraced by not only the 
Weather Service, but the entire weather enterprise, and 
especially as we approach an impending severe weather event, we 
all work together. We work to ensure that accurate and 
consistent products and services are provided to all public 
safety officials at all government levels, and we work together 
to save lives and property based on information we provide that 
is tied directly to their life-saving decisions. This is done 
through the impact bases and support services that specifically 
go to the public safety officials, [inaudible].
    Our success to build a Weather-Ready Nation is illustrated 
by a noted decrease in fatalities during extreme events, and 
testimonials from our partners which are included in my written 
testimony. This demonstrates how we have embraced the Weather-
Ready Nation and the IDSS concepts, and that success is based 
on the trusted relationships with emergency managers and other 
public safety officials developed over the past 10 years.
    At the same time, you have helped us make enormous 
structural changes to the National Weather Service budget 
planning and execution process. Together, we created the six 
portfolios aligned with executing the field forecast process, 
accelerating science and technology advances into the National 
Weather Service from a larger research community, and the 
private sector, and addressing our critical facility needs. The 
entire budget process is designed to support and advance our 
people in the field in order to meet our mission.
    We also work hard to streamline the hiring process and 
increase our staffing levels to a point now that we haven't 
seen since 2015, with an increase of nearly 150 staff since 
2017. We have also placed a renewed emphasis for our work force 
to better reflect the communities we serve.
    Our research and modeling has kept pace and in some cases 
led the rest of the world, but we got a long way to go. Our 
push forward with a unified forecast system is well on its way. 
We created it, the Earth Prediction Innovation Center, EPIC, to 
accelerate that [inaudible] process, that research to operation 
process, and we've also been improving our dissemination system 
and developing a National Blend of Models as a first step in 
the forecast process that will help the forecasters get the 
gridded products out faster and unlock time directed toward the 
IDSS.
    So, on the eve of my retirement, I can say that I'm leaving 
the Weather Service in a better place than I found it. I have 
briefed you on many issues over the years, and I've watched as 
your confidence in us has returned and deepened. Your support 
of the National Weather Service is invaluable, and we will need 
that support even more now as we move into the future marked by 
more extreme events, fueled by the changing warmer climate, 
such as the record recent rainfalls, flooding, extended and 
flash droughts, the wildfires, extreme heat, extreme cold, and 
of course, the destructive hurricanes making landfall along the 
Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, and the severe weather outbreaks that 
have devastated rural and suburban communities, all of which 
points to the increasing importance of the Impact-based 
Decision Support Services, which we have now just recently 
added to the National Weather Service Mission Statement.
    Serving our Nation and leading the Federal Government's 
finest, most dedicated work force has been my privilege and 
profound honor. I will be watching the National Weather Service 
with respect, pride, and gratitude for everything the most 
dedicated employees in the Federal Government bring to their 
job every day, and with a big thank you for what you do to 
empower them.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Uccellini follows:]  
    
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
   
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
    Now, Mr. Johnson.

       TESTIMONY OF MR. CARDELL JOHNSON, ACTING DIRECTOR,

               NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT,

          U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE (GAO)

    Mr. Johnson. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and 
Members of the Committee, good morning, and thank you for the 
opportunity to discuss our work on the National Weather 
Service's reform efforts and staffing challenges.
    While the National Weather Service has substantially 
followed many leading practices for effective reform, these 
efforts could benefit from additional actions and continued 
attention. My statement today discusses opportunities for the 
agency to enhance leadership focus and attention, and to better 
involve employees and key stakeholders in the reform efforts. I 
will also discuss longstanding human capital challenges that 
may hinder the agency's reform efforts.
    So, the first opportunity for improvement is enhancing 
leadership focus and attention. The National Weather Service 
stood up a Program Management Office to oversee the 
implementation of agency reforms; however, the agency's 
approach to staffing the office has not provided it with the 
capacity to effectively implement the reforms. Key leadership 
and staff positions are rotational or part-time. In 5 years, 7 
officials rotated through the director role. Also, some staff 
found it difficult to balance workload from competing 
priorities. This rotational and part-time staffing model 
resulted in rework, disruption to projects, and increased risk 
of reforms failing. According to one senior official, these 
reforms are one of the most important things National Weather 
Service is doing, but no one is assigned to do it.
    So, we recommended the agency revise its approach to 
staffing the Program Management Office (PMO) to improve 
leadership and staff continuity, and capacity for its reform 
efforts.
    The second opportunity to improve reform implementation is 
better involving employees and stakeholders in the process. The 
concern here is that some staff did not feel that the agency 
was being transparent about the reforms, and there are also 
concerns that the agency has not sufficiently communicated with 
staff in the field about the reform efforts, and there are 
concerns that these reforms could lead to office closures and 
job losses. Our previous work found that failure to adequately 
address issues related to people and culture can lead to 
reforms being unsuccessful. Therefore, we're recommending that 
the National Weather Service develop a two-way communications 
strategy that outlines how the agency will listen and respond 
to employees' concerns about the reform efforts.
    In addition to implementing these opportunities for 
improvement, the National Weather Service will need to address 
its human capital challenges. Vacancies and hiring are 
longstanding issues that could affect the agency's capacity to 
implement these reforms. In 2017, we found that vacancies and a 
lengthy hiring process led managers and staff to take on 
additional responsibilities, work additional forecasting 
shifts, and adjust or cancel leave plans. And as a result of 
this, officials indicated that managers and staff experienced 
stress and reduced morale, all of which may impact successful 
reform.
    So, in conclusion, we do recognize that the National 
Weather Service has taken steps to reform its operations and 
workforce. Further addressing leadership and staff continuity, 
capacity, and broader staffing challenges, as well as 
effectively engaging employees and key stakeholders, would 
strengthen the agency's reform efforts and, by doing so, move 
the agency closer to achieving its vision of creating that 
Weather-Ready Nation that is responsive and resilient to 
extreme weather events.
    Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of 
the Committee, this concludes my oral statement, and I'm happy 
to respond to questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]  
    
    
    
 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
       
    
    Voice. You're still muted, Ms. Johnson.
    Chairwoman Johnson. So sorry. I was wondering why I got no 
response.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson. We'll go now to Mr. 
Werner.

                 TESTIMONY OF MR. JOHN WERNER,

              PRESIDENT, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

                 EMPLOYEES ORGANIZATION (NWSEO)

    Mr. Werner. Good morning, and thank you, Chairwoman 
Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and Committee Members.
    As you know, the National Weather Service Employees 
Organization represents 3,300 employees at over 160 National 
Weather Service offices nationwide. These are the folks 
responsible for the preparation and delivery of the Nation's 
forecasts, warnings, and Impact-based Decision Support Services 
that save lives, protect property, and enhance the national 
economy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long.
    Now, despite an ever-expanding mission, the National 
Weather Service has close to 500 fewer employees than it did 10 
years ago. Most of our vacant employees are operational and 
classified as emergency essential. These empty seats lead to 
serious consequences. Service assessments conducted by the 
Weather Service following 13 major storms that occurred between 
2008 and 2018 found that the ability of the National Weather 
Service to protect lives during these events was compromised 
due to already inadequate staffing at weather forecast offices 
or river forecast centers.
    Now, according to a 2015 study conducted by McKinsey and 
Company, the workload of most forecast offices exceeds the 
available meteorologist workforce. In May 2017, the GAO 
released a study requested by Members of this Committee which 
revealed that the vacancy rate in National Weather Service 
operational units has reached a point where employees are 
unable at times to perform key tasks. They further found that 
staff experienced stress, fatigue, and reduced morale resulting 
from their efforts to cover for vacancies due to lack of time 
off and loss of training. According to the GAO, the National 
Weather Service managers admit that employees are demoralized 
because they had to cover the workload for multiple vacancies.
    Since the GAO and McKinsey studies were conducted, 
understaffing at National Weather Service has not improved. The 
chart that will be displayed shows that the number of non-
managerial, non-supervisory employees on board over the past 10 
years according to the data the National Weather Service 
routinely provides to us, the latest data depicted here is from 
July of this year. We did receive updated numbers yesterday 
after we had submitted this graph. So, as of September 25, 
there has been a slight increase to 3,400 from the numbers that 
we have been provided.
    [The chart follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Werner. The National Weather Service Employees 
Organization has from the outset pushed for and supported the 
concept of Impact-based Decision Support Services. Going 
forward, we just need to appropriately resource it to sustain 
it. Adequate staffing is critical to meeting the current and 
growing demands for our Decision Support Service to key 
partners in emergency management community at all levels of 
government.
    One initiative reported by management to free up more 
forecaster time is the use of the National Blend of Models 
(NBM) as a starting point for our gridded database. We are 
unsure at this time how much processing time this may save, if 
any. We believe the challenge with using the NBM as a starting 
point is to ensure the forecast is not degraded by the loss of 
local weather expertise that our experienced forecasters add to 
the process.
    As widely reported in the media, National Weather Service's 
current dissemination and information infrastructure has proven 
to be unreliable. We are, though, encouraged to see that the 
House Appropriations Committee recommended a funding increase 
of close to $37 million in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget to 
improve dissemination. A robust and stable infrastructure is a 
must.
    Another factor which may hinder the building of a Weather-
Ready Nation is the unequal distribution of experienced 
forecasters and employees, and employees departing from the 
National Weather Service due to the lack of mobility. Both of 
these are a result of the implementation of the 2019 GS 
(General Schedule) 5-12 Meteorologist Career Ladder 
Progression. The focus has been placed on just filling 
vacancies with new hires, and not enough on maintaining a 
healthy experience balance among the meteorologist staff at 
offices who have had a large turnover during the past couple 
years. And we need to strive to maintain current employees, 
many of whom are frustrated due to lack of opportunity to move 
to a more desirable location, and many are now considering 
careers outside of the National Weather Service.
    In closing, I would like to thank this Committee for its 
support of employees that the National Weather Service 
Employees Organization represents. Aside from our significant 
resource and process challenges, I truly believe that the 
National Weather Service, along with the rest of NOAA, is a 
fantastic organization with an unparalleled mission, supported 
by employees whose dedication and passion are second to none.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Werner follows:]  
    
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
    And our final witness is Mr. Salna.

                  TESTIMONY OF MR. ERIK SALNA,

         ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR EDUCATION AND OUTREACH,

            INTERNATIONAL HURRICANE RESEARCH CENTER,

                   EXTREME EVENTS INSTITUTE,

                FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

    Mr. Salna. Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Ranking Member, and 
Congressman Gimenez, and Members of the Committee. It is an 
honor to be with you today representing Florida International 
University, Miami's public research university. We are excited 
to share our insights as a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador.
    Investments from the State of Florida and Federal partners, 
including NOAA and the National Science Foundation, have 
advanced our research at FIU. NSF has designated the Wall of 
Wind, which replicates a Category 5 hurricane, as one of the 
Nation's eight major experimental facilities under the Natural 
Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure Program, and we are 
privileged to have the National Hurricane Center and the 
National Weather Service Miami Office on our main campus here 
in Miami.
    Our International Hurricane Research Center, or IHRC, was 
designated the very first Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador in 
south Florida in 2014. Here is a brief snapshot of how Weather-
Ready Nation has made an impact in south Florida.
    To begin with, Weather-Ready Nations are NOAA's boots on 
the ground. IHRC education and outreach takes hurricane 
mitigation and preparedness into the community through National 
NOAA Weather Service partnerships. This includes high 
visibility public education events like the Eye of the Storm 
and successful hurricane exhibits at the Museum of Discovery 
and Science in Fort Lauderdale, and our Spanish-language 
hurricane website, huracanes.fiu.edu, which speaks to the 
country's changing demographics, and partnering with the 
National Hurricane Center on the Hurricane Awareness Tour, and 
our K-12 programs prepare our youngest and next generation of 
Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors. This includes teacher 
workshops and the Wall of Wind challenge, which inspires 
students to pursue STEM degrees by challenging teams to develop 
innovative and mitigation concepts which are then tested at the 
Wall of Wind.
    Now, many top research universities like FIU are Weather-
Ready Nation Ambassadors, and we literally take our science to 
the people. At FIU, our research has a purpose. Either we 
reduce risk, or risk will reduce us. Through NHC's joint 
hurricane test bed, FIU's CEST (Coastal and Estuarine Storm 
Tide) storm surge model is helping the center storm surge 
forecasting, and we are collaborating to develop a coastal 
forecast system in the Caribbean region. We work with NOAA's 
Hurricane Research Division and the Environmental Modeling 
Center on improving hurricane forecast models, specifically 
rapid intensification. And alongside USAID, we are also focused 
on disaster risk reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean.
    So, building a Weather-Ready Nation is a team effort. FIU's 
success as a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador comes from a 
multi-partner approach, working together with NOAA and the 
National Weather Service. And as we move forward, here are some 
thoughts on how we can work with Congress and NOAA to 
strengthen the future Weather-Ready Nation. Continued 
collaboration in investments can enhance weather forecasting 
research, including hurricane tracking intensity, to improve 
warnings; storm surge modeling research to improve public 
evacuations; and social science research to improve the linkage 
between National Weather Service products and public 
understanding. The best forecast in the world is useless if the 
public doesn't respond or hasn't taken the needed actions to 
protect itself.
    Also, future work force. At FIU, we believe that our 
demography is our destiny, and that of the country. NOAA has a 
great opportunity to collaborate with existing research 
university partners, in particular urban public minority-
serving institutions like FIU, to recruit a highly skilled and 
diverse work force. Communicating weather readiness to diverse 
and more digital audiences. NOAA and its Ambassadors must reach 
broader, more diverse audiences. The FIU Spanish language 
website is just one example. In vulnerable populations, embrace 
building a Weather-Ready Nation for all by addressing 
vulnerable populations' needs and resource inequities.
    At the end of the day, it's all about people, families, and 
livelihoods. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you 
today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Salna follows:]  
    
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
  
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you so very much. At this time, I 
would like to ask the unanimous consent to submit a letter for 
the record from the President of the International Association 
of Emergency Managers in the support of the National Weather 
Service, and of Dr. Uccellini's tenure of the Weather Service. 
Without objection, so ordered.
    First questions will begin, and I will recognize myself for 
five minutes.
    Dr. Uccellini, what concrete steps has the National Weather 
Service taken to address gender and racial diversity gaps in 
the work force?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, we have certainly have renewed our 
focus on the issues, not only from a Weather Service 
perspective, but from a NOAA perspective. And we're actually 
showing success in that regard in the number of women and 
minorities that we're bringing into the National Weather 
Service. And you know, we're actually not happy in the sense 
that the--we always strive to do better in these areas, so I 
think it's important to focus on what we're doing now to 
improve and to retain.
    This is also another important issue for both women on--in 
the National Weather Service and minorities. We're seeing 
retention rates that are, quite frankly, in the minority area 
that are not acceptable. So, we're working those issues as 
well.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Well, thank you.
    Why is having a robust, dynamic, and diverse work force 
critical for advancing weather forecasting?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, we certainly embrace the notion that 
we need to look like the communities we serve, and the Nation 
itself is becoming more diverse. I think everybody recognizes 
that. Important to us, we have large segments of the United 
States in which Spanish might be a primary language, so we have 
to deal with those issues. We have our urban environments that 
are particularly vulnerable to heat, as an example, and 
pollution. We need to better focus on that and work with the 
communities that suffer from that.
    Now, having stated that, we showed a lot of success in 
areas over the past 20, 25 years in working with indigenous 
people, the native Alaskan communities, the tribal nations, the 
Southwest Pacific Island States. So, we believe we have a 
foundation to work from to address the issues as they are 
emerging today.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you.
    Any witness would like to comment? OK.
    The National Weather Service initiated a series of reforms 
in 2017 to help it achieve a strategic vision of building a 
Weather-Ready Nation. Two of the main goals are to free up 
staff time and improve service to partners. These initiatives 
are in various stages of completion. The 2021 GAO report makes 
recommendations to the National Weather Service on its reform 
activities, the Evolve Program and the National Blend of 
Models.
    Mr. Johnson, do you think that is the most important step 
the Weather Service needs to take to implement these reforms?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you for that question.
    We would say that successful reform is rooted in having 
leadership and staff continuity and capacity, as well as 
effective communication. So, the most important step that the 
National Weather Service can take is to provide that leadership 
and staff continuity and capacity to the Program Management 
Office that oversees the implementation of these reforms. That 
continuity and capacity is going to ensure that the 
organization has the tools, skills, and resources to see these 
reforms through.
    And at the same time, the National Weather Service would 
need to effectively engage its employees and key stakeholders. 
That will help employees and stakeholders understand the nature 
of the changes, gaining their buy-in and ownership of them. So, 
yes, the important step is having that continuity and capacity 
and effective communication.
    Chairwoman Johnson. OK.
    Many of the Weather Service's staff and hiring and 
operation issues discussed in the GAO report are longstanding. 
What do you think has been hindering the Weather Service in 
making more progress?
    Mr. Johnson. Well, to be fair, you know, these reforms--
implementing agency reforms is pretty difficult and hard to do, 
and it's just going to take some time.
    But with that said, there are two issues, staffing and 
transparency. With respect to staffing, the National Weather 
Service has longstanding challenges with work force capacity 
and continuity. Our work has identified increasing vacancy 
rates, a lengthy hiring process, and challenges with staff 
balancing workload. So, we point for the need for the Weather 
Service to complete a work force analysis to address those, and 
the National Weather Service has actually recognized this and 
they have this on their plan to do.
    And again, I would go back to--with respect to 
transparency, the need for effective engagement with 
stakeholders. So, what we've heard is that, you know, the 
National Weather Service has taken steps to communicate 
information. I do want to be fair with that. But the staff that 
we've talked to, they said that receiving email updates or 
posting information to the internet page is just not really 
sufficient for the massive amount of change that's taking 
place, and they're concerned about the potential impact. So, we 
would recommend to address that, they develop a transparent 
two-way communication strategy that outlines how they're going 
to listen and respond.
    So, those two things, the transparency and the staffing, if 
they address those, we believe that they will be able to move 
forward. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. My time is 
expired.
    I now recognize our Ranking Member of the Committee, Mr. 
Lucas, for five minutes.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Uccellini, it's always been a pleasure having you 
testify before this Committee, and you and I have worked 
together on the best policies to improve weather forecasting 
for the better part of a decade. So, I want to take a wide 
angle and kind of look backward before looking forward, and you 
can be as specific as you'd like.
    But my question is what has the Weather Act of 2017 meant 
to the weather community?
    Dr. Uccellini. I think the Weather Act has been the most 
important legislation and indication of support from this 
government in my entire career in the meteorological community, 
which spans 50 years. We embrace the Weather Act and all five 
titles, all five segments of it, to move not only the Weather 
Service forward, but the larger enterprise forward, including 
the other components of NOAA, the research satellite components 
especially. It's just been an enormous foundational basis for 
moving forward since it came out in April of--I believe it was 
2017. It's just been tremendous.
    One of the examples is the recognition that our job doesn't 
end with the forecast and warning, and authorized us to provide 
the Impact-based Decision Support Services over all government 
levels. We have embraced that, and to the point--I would say 
that our work force has embraced it, and we've been very 
transparent with our work force on this.
    I should note that I've visited more than 120 offices, and 
other leaders within the Weather Service are right up there 
next to those numbers as well, engaging with the work force for 
hours both in the office and over dinner, which goes on for 
hours because we are trying to be transparent here. And this 
IDSS has been a critical reform in going beyond the forecast 
and warning and engaging these decisionmakers, and I believe we 
need to continue on that track.
    So, in the Weather Act and research, the commercial aspect, 
the private sector, the tsunami aspect, the seasonal and sub-
seasonal, all of the above, it's been a tremendous boost for us 
moving forward.
    Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Doctor, and I appreciate those 
comments because we live in a very cynical time, both in 
Congress and the general public, but the fact is we do good 
work and this Committee did good work in 2017. I appreciate 
your acknowledgement.
    Now, that said, looking from this point forward, what are 
you observations about what is missing from the Weather Act, or 
what's still needed within the weather community to maximize 
our forecasting abilities? Look forward now.
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, the--we're living in a time when we 
can see it. We can visualize that the impacts of these systems 
and the intensity of these weather systems are increasing. 
We're seeing it in the fire aspect. We don't have fire seasons 
anymore; we have fire years. They burn hotter and they move 
faster. The extreme heat, extreme cold, the flooding, the 
rainfall rates. I mean, we're seeing rainfall rates in what we 
call extra tropical latitudes where the United States sits 
itself, we're seeing rainfall rates that haven't been observed 
before, hourly rainfall rates. That last flood in New York City 
that flooded subways is the first time that I've been able to 
find that subways have been flooded from rainfall. They've been 
flooded from surges off of the ocean.
    So, we are living in times where the demand for what we do 
is going to grow, and it's going to be essential for people to 
respond to these types of events. This is a research issue. The 
research community has to be involved. It's an operational 
issue with respect to the technology and science we have to 
bring into our operations to address these types of systems 
that have not been observed before. And then we have the social 
science issue that connects our forecasts and warnings to 
decisionmaking and accounts for the risk factors.
    I mean, we're confronted with how do you communicate these 
impacts on something that people haven't observed before? OK. 
That's a big task to get people to respond, and that's not only 
on us. It's on the public safety officials at every government 
level that have to work these issues.
    Mr. Lucas. Well, Doctor, I'll simply conclude by saying 
thank you for your decades and decades of public service. There 
are good people in all branches of Federal Government, and 
you're a classic example.
    With that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
    We will now move to the staff to recognize Members in 
proper order.
    Staff. Ms. Bonamici is recognized.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, and thank you, Chair 
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, and thank you to our 
witnesses. As someone who's spent a lot of time working on the 
Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 with 
Mr. Lucas and others, I appreciate your question, Mr. Lucas, 
and I also appreciate your response, Dr. Uccellini.
    That being said, in 2018 I did join my Committee colleagues 
in requesting a study from the GAO regarding the National 
Weather Service's efforts to reform and modernize under the 
Evolve Program. In its most recent study published in response 
to our request, the GAO found that the National Weather Service 
had adhered to practices for effective reform, but has not 
adequately implemented several recommendations including a 
communication strategy that listens and responds to employee 
concerns about the Evolve Program. So, according to the study, 
NWS officials planned on finalizing a communications strategy 
by the end of Fiscal Year 2021, which ended a few weeks ago.
    So, Mr. Werner, will you please explain further detail how 
the lack of a clear two-way communication strategy has affected 
members of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, 
what improvements you would like to see, and the benefits of a 
more effective two-way communications strategy?
    Mr. Werner. Thank you, Congresswoman Bonamici. There's a 
lot to unpackage in that.
    I think we have started communicating some over the past 
year, but there has been a distinct lack of transparency, and 
you understand if you go ahead and do something in a vacuum at 
the top level, it's a mile high and then you come down with a 
great idea, maybe it doesn't translate well into the field. I 
think it's a benefit to get this energy, you know, come up with 
visions, come up with ideas, but let's integrate the whole 
process from the field offices to the regional level to the 
national level, so everybody's kind of on the same page. Where 
do we want to go, but what's the best way to implement this so 
it'll actually work?
    We talk about the NBM, the National Blend of Models, being 
a timesaver. Well, we have a region out there who's been using 
a Blend of Models for 10 years in the extended forecast. 
Another region has been using it for five years. So, these are 
not things that haven't been tried at the grassroots level to 
try to go ahead and improve the forecast, and to improve time. 
So, communication transparency is absolutely important, and I 
think everyone knows if you do--if the information is not 
flowing, then the rumors start and the conspiracies start. We 
need to go ahead and have that open dialog, and be transparent. 
What do we want to do, and then let the employees decide how 
are we going to do that? Let them be involved.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Werner. I hope that answered your question.
    Ms. Bonamici. Yes, it did. I appreciate that. Thank you so 
much, and I look forward to further information about how 
changes will be implemented.
    And so, I have another question. In the past three decades, 
we know the United States has sustained more than 300 weather 
disasters, costing the Nation more than $2 trillion, and 
climate change has increased the severity and frequency of 
these extreme weather events. In the Pacific Northwest, my home 
in Oregon, we experienced record-breaking heatwaves that killed 
hundreds of people, including here in my home State. Clearly, 
accurate and accessible forecasts are more important than ever, 
and though technological improvements have increased the 
accuracy of forecasts and warning, there are still reliability 
issues.
    So, in March of this year, the NWS's network crashed and 
impeded public access to its lifesaving services, as well as 
the NWS chat function that's used by thousands to discuss 
hazardous events in real time.
    So, Dr. Uccellini, last year NOAA released its cloud 
strategy which outlines the administration's goal for 
accelerating cloud-based service integration. So, will you 
please explain the progress and the timeline for integration of 
the National Weather Service data into a commercial cloud 
platform, and elaborate on the extent to which these 
information system upgrades will prevent future outages and 
failures?
    Dr. Uccellini. OK. So, first of all, I want to thank the 
Hill for providing extra resources in the Fiscal Year 2021 
budget, a $1.5 million increase in our dissemination effort. We 
were finally able to get the plan through the system and up to 
the Hill that we've been developing over the last several 
years, and that does include a cloud smart approach to how we 
are advancing capabilities.
    With respect to--I think perhaps you are referring to the 
part of our dissemination program which involves the chat, the 
ability to chat not only within the Weather Service, but with 
our partners outside, a very critical function. And with the 
resources, we've--we're not only dealing with the transition of 
what has been the legacy system developed many years ago, which 
was not transportable into the new technology. So, we used the 
resources to transition that and we're about a month away from 
the first abilities to run the chat on the new system.
    But we're also in parallel--and this gets you to the 
cloud--we're working with the--to a competitive process the 
slack demo now is ongoing, which is cloud-based, and we, you 
know, we have about another--we just started in October with 
the demo. We'll go another several weeks and then assess, and 
then make decisions from that assessment. We take a very--as I 
think Cardell Johnson was point to, we take a very systematic 
approach to any changes in our operational systems with our 
users fully engaged, as we're doing with this demo, including 
the emergency management community, and especially the 
emergency management community, but others also in the 
community.
    So, that's an example. We're also transitioning functions 
that have been on a dissemination platform that perhaps can be 
moved onto other platforms, and our first effort in that 
involves the multi-radar multi-spectrum development efforts, 
and we showed success in that and we're now considering other 
functions as well as the resources are made available. These 
transitions of operational systems do take resources, and we 
take a very careful approach with this.
    So, those are examples----
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Dr. Uccellini.
    Dr. Uccellini. We certainly--OK. I'm sorry.
    Ms. Bonamici. Dr. Uccellini, my time is expired, but as I 
yield back, I want to thank you so much for your years of 
service. You've had an illustrious career, and we all 
appreciate your work and wish you the very best.
    I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Uccellini. Thank you.
    Staff. Mr. Posey.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
    Staff. Mr. Posey is recognized.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you, and thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, 
for holding this meeting. Dr. Uccellini, thank you so much for 
your years of dedicated service, wonderful, wonderful service.
    As it stands now, NOAA's ocean service and the National 
Centers for Coastal Ocean Science are the de facto leaders for 
harmful algal blooms forecasting. Now, they've developed an 
algal bloom monitoring system for locating, monitoring, and 
quantifying algal blooms in coastal and lake regions across the 
country.
    My question is what role does the National Weather Service 
play in harmful algal blooms forecasting, especially when it 
comes to the effect that severe storms like hurricanes have on 
algal blooms conditions and movement?
    Dr. Uccellini. So, one of the things we do is we partner 
with the National Ocean Service (NOS) that actually runs the 
forecast models for the bays, the coastal areas, and the 
harmful algal bloom. We work with them in terms of providing 
the computing capacity, for example. They run those models on 
what is looked as the weather operational models, and the 
reason is that they need weather parameters from our own models 
to actually drive components of their prediction system. After 
the forecasts are made, we have positioned the relevant 
forecast offices--and this has been, you know, embraced by--
especially in the local offices--embraced by the work force in 
those offices to serve as service outlets, in a sense, and work 
very diligently with the partners at NOS and with the people 
receiving the information that make decisions like along the 
Gulf Coast in Florida, and also in Lake Erie.
    So, there are ``operational systems'' that we work with our 
partners at NOS and deliver those forecasts and work with the 
decisionmakers accordingly.
    Mr. Posey. Well, thank you.
    Can you think of the National Weather Service's ability to 
do more for harmful algal blooms forecasting? Can you think of 
what else we might be able to do?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, the science and the abilities actually 
lie in the National Ocean Service and in the Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Research Group, OAR, for example, the Great Lakes 
Environmental Research Lab. We work with them as they're 
developing these new advances, and I can say that we learn from 
them. It's really been one of the learning experiences as to--
for me, and recognizing that the harmful algal bloom in 
freshwater lakes, for example, like Lake Erie can actually be 
more toxic than what happens along the coast. And I know in 
Florida, you have that combination of Lake Okeechobee water and 
the Gulf water coming together, and providing these blooms over 
a 2-, 3-month period.
    So--but from a science perspective, we rely on those other 
components. From a service perspective, we are working with 
them to make sure that we can get the connectivity with the 
local decisionmakers that need this information. Whether it is 
the water, whether it's the fish, the shellfish folks, 
whatever. So, it's really a true partnership within NOAA that's 
bringing this expertise and this ability through the service 
pipelines into the communities.
    Mr. Posey. How important is it to understand coupled ocean 
atmosphere interactions for weather forecasting?
    Dr. Uccellini. Oh, it's very--it's one of the main factors 
we have to work toward to improve ourselves in the future. It's 
not just the atmosphere for us, it's the entire earth system. 
It's earth system science, and the ocean atmospheric coupling 
is an incredible component of that.
    My colleague, my leader at OAR, Craig McClain, handed me a 
bumper sticker that says ``If you like your 7-day weather 
forecast, thank an oceanographer.'' I have that in my office 
that I've not been in for about--I would say now 82 weeks.
    So, but it is true, and I've been the co-chair for the 
World Meteorological Organization for the effort to bring the 
ocean and atmospheric communities together as organizations to 
address these issues into the future. So, it's not just in the 
United States, it really is truly a global issue. We've got to 
bring a coupled approach in the entire earth system forward to 
advance our forecast capabilities.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you very much. I see my time is expired, 
and I yield back. Thank you.
    Staff. Mr. Bera is recognized.
    Mr. Bera. Thank you, and I want to thank the Chairwoman and 
the Ranking Member for having this hearing. Obviously, in my 
home State of California, and my home district, and in Northern 
California, in the Sacramento region, we've been dealing with 
devastating wildfires, as the whole West Coast and the Western 
United States has, and unfortunately, it's becoming the norm. 
Maybe this is a question for Dr. Uccellini.
    You know, one of the causes of these fires are the high 
winds that are coming through Northern California, which is 
leading to electricity shutoff decisions, et cetera. Could you 
talk a little bit about how NOAA and the National Weather 
Service--the role that they play in providing some of that 
information for these shutoff decisions, which really do affect 
large blocks of Northern California, and what additional 
research we might be able to support to provide better 
decisionmaking on these shutoff decisions?
    Dr. Uccellini. OK. Well, we do provide our forecast--we 
make it available to all components of the commercial sector, 
and, of course, the public safety officials, government 
officials, that have to make tough decisions. And, you know, 
that's our forecast information directly from the models, our 
forecast information directly from the National Blend of 
Models, and the forecasts that come from the local offices, 
which are all consistent, and they all get more of a tailored 
approach to the community. However, many of the--if not all of 
the utility companies now either have their internal 
meteorological groups, or they have private sector firms that 
provide information, and those private sector firms we work in 
partnership also to ensure consistency in what we're putting 
forward.
    So, with respect to the decision process that the utilities 
make, they have the information stream to them, and one of the 
things that I can say as an enterprise, as a community, we're 
able to make these forecasts for extreme events and extreme 
wind events out--you know, with a greater level of accuracy and 
certainty out to a week in advance. So I can imagine that 
there's a tremendous lead time and risk assessment that's going 
on inside those utility companies to make those decisions, but 
we're not part of that decision process. We're providing the 
information into it, and they tailor it and make those 
decisions. But I would say that, as an entity, the lead time 
and accuracy for these forecasts has been actually pretty 
remarkable.
    Mr. Bera. Right. And, you know, maybe for any of the 
witnesses, also my home district--obviously Sacramento 
historically has been a very flood-prone region, and, you know, 
you wouldn't know it today if you went to Folsom Lake, which, 
you know, it's a big reservoir, we're living through, you know, 
probably one of the worst droughts certainly in the 30 years 
that I've lived up here. From a predictive model, how do--how 
far in advance can we--and, again, maybe this again is for Dr. 
Uccellini, how far in advance can we predict what the weather 
season, you know, coming up is going to be like, and how do we 
integrate that with, you know, global data as well in other 
countries?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, what we are seeing in our discussions 
with the National Academy of Sciences, for example, from June 
2020, and other engagements with the scientific community, we 
not only have an operational prediction challenge when you're 
getting into these extended time periods, we have what we call 
a predictability challenge, in that there are--you know, 
there's a level of predictability that rapidly declines even as 
you get into two weeks and beyond.
    So with precipitation it's particularly--that's a factor of 
the atmosphere that really loses predictability fairly quickly. 
And one of the big challenges that we all face, whether--you 
know, speaking from the research community or the operational 
community, is how to engage whatever predictability there is in 
the signals that we have, whether it's directly from the 
numerical models, or from tracking these large-scale patterns, 
like the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or the Enzo Pattern in the 
Pacific, the El Nino/La Nina Patterns, we can use those, and we 
can bring past experiences to those, but from a hard core 
predictive approach, we realize that there's a lot of 
uncertainty involved in using that information.
    So--but the users demand it. I mean, you know, society is 
trying to make decisions based exactly on what's happening in 
your State, and your water supply, so we're bringing the 
information as best we can, with the level of uncertainty 
involved, but clearly stated, to those users to make the 
difficult decisions.
    Mr. Bera. But I--I see my time has expired, so I'll yield 
back. Thank you again for your service, Dr. Uccellini.
    Dr. Uccellini. OK.
    Staff. Mr. Weber is recognized.
    Mr. Weber. Thank you, I appreciate that. Dr. Uccellini--
this is for you, Dr. Uccellini. You heard it already said, it's 
a tribute basically to you and your leadership that many, many 
companies and organizations have signed up to serve as 
Ambassadors in support of having a Weather-Ready Nation. So 
suffice it to say, I guess, your expertise and leadership 
created help--created and helped coin the term ``Weather-Ready 
Nation''. Of course, we're in Texas, where we have just about 
every weather phenomenon there is. I don't know that we're--we 
ever get all that ready. Sometimes we get fooled, but--you 
understood that--nonetheless, you understood this was an 
opportunity program for increased engagement and partnerships 
with the private sector weather forecast companies with members 
of America's weather and climate industry, and they 
wholeheartedly supported the Weather-Ready Nation program.
    Dr. Uccellini, if you could take this time to speak to the 
partnership between NWS and the private sector weather 
forecasters, and how they work closely with the National 
Weather Service toward building that Weather-Ready Nation? 
Could you speak to that, please, sir?
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes, I'd be glad to. We recognize that 
addressing the public safety--for the Weather Service to 
address the public safety mission--and you've heard comments 
now from the GAO, and from NWSEO. It'd be--you know, we don't 
have the resources to even optimally deal with all the issues 
there. So you'll see private sector firms that even work--are 
now working with us, like, through the chat function, 
collaborate, actually, or pass through our warnings at times 
now that they didn't even 5 years ago, because we all are 
recognizing the need to work together for a consistent 
messaging. And the private sector then will take that and 
tailor it to specific customers across the wide berth of 
activities, agriculture, energy, you know, water supply, et 
cetera. So I just think--or transportation.
    I just think that that partnership is essential. We can't--
we cannot do this alone. When we designed the Weather-Ready 
Nation as a strategic goal, and brought, you know, a vision on 
how to get to that goal, the first thing we heard back from the 
National Academy of Public Administration, when they reviewed 
it, based on a congressional language, they said, hey, this is 
a great strategic outcome. You can't do it alone, all right? 
You're going to need other agencies, you're going to need the 
private sector, we need the academic community. We're getting 
into social science to be able communicate risk, all of the 
above. So this is--the success of this program will depend on 
our partnerships.
    And if I might add, I can tell you from the--a global 
perspective, the private/public partnership in the United 
States is looked on as the gold standard of the world. Other 
parts of the world are wondering how we do it, quite frankly. 
So I'll just say that one of the other reasons I embrace it, 
that--because we can't do it all. One of the other reasons I 
embrace it is that it's a job creator. I watch the students 
come out and get jobs, and it's really delightful to see that. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Weber. Yes. Well, thank you for that. You're to be 
commended for your service, and I will say that we are taking 
applications for retirees here in Texas.
    Dr. Uccellini. I'll think about that.
    Mr. Weber. Thank you, and I yield back, Ms. Chairman.
    Staff. Ms. Stevens is recognized.
    Ms. Stevens. Great. Thank you so much for this very 
important hearing, and--it really touches to the core of 
something that we have experienced and dealt with here in 
Michigan in a very visceral way, which is--in metro Detroit we 
have been hit with storm, after storm, after storm for the 
balance of months, oftentimes without any ability to have 
warning. Thunderstorms that turn into tornadoes, thunderstorms 
that turn into super cells, basements that have been flooded, 
disaster declarations, small businesses that were just 
beginning to reopen and had to close again, unbelievable power 
outages, and certainly very pertinent as we're on the heels 
of--or just getting ready to pass some incredible 
infrastructure and sustainability legislation.
    But relevant to today's hearing is this ability to predict, 
and certainly I want to put the onus on all of you, right? And 
it's how can we better predict the super cell storm, rapid high 
winds that just knocked over our big, beautiful trees in the 
city of Farmington and Farmington Hills, neighbors telling me, 
we didn't even get a warning. But more so I want to ask, and 
maybe this is a question for Mr. Salna as well as Mr. Cardell 
Johnson, just given that you are digging at this, are there 
tools and technologies that will enable us to better predict? 
Is there training we should be putting in place at the county, 
or at the local level in particular, when--certainly I've been 
hearing Dr. Uccellini talk about some of these challenges with 
the National Weather Service, but I just want to take this a 
step further and hear from you at the university level, and 
certainly, Mr. Cardell from your--Mr. Johnson, from your GAO 
study. Is there the opportunity to better predict? And, Mr. 
Salna, if you would like to start, that'd be great.
    Mr. Salna. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, there's a 
couple of ways that we could look at that. One thing that is 
used within the research community, with NOAA and universities, 
are what's called Federal labs and test beds. And it's a great 
collaboration that we've had here at FIU, where we've 
collaborated with NOAA and the National Hurricane Center, 
through test beds and other grant programs, to overcome, you 
know, certain restrictions, but that collaboration of the 
academic with, you know, the government agency, it's been very 
successful, and it also--our connection with the National 
Science Foundation, and the National Hazards Engineering 
Research Infrastructure Program, with our Wall of Wind--as we 
like to say, we don't want silos. We want collaboration to 
bring people together.
    So when you have an open forum for research and testing 
proposals from all across the country, for example, coming to 
the Wall of Wind, where we can test not only for hurricane 
force winds, but we can test for lower speed wind events, like 
derechos, and things that make----
    Ms. Stevens. The derechos----
    Mr. Salna. Yes.
    Ms. Stevens [continuing]. Um-hum.
    Mr. Salna. That--and so I think that's one way to look at 
it, is now--because that all leads to improvement in the 
models, when we talk about the weather forecasting models, so--
these test beds. So continuing our efforts and support in those 
kinds of environments to make advances in the models.
    Ms. Stevens. Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Johnson. All right. Thank you for that question. So, 
the work that we've done since 2017 did not focus on the 
different technologies for prediction but more on how the 
National Weather Service has managed its reform efforts. But 
one thing that I can say from the work that we've done, I think 
this is where the Weather Service is focused with its National 
Blend of Models, and, you know, having a common point for 
developing forecasts so that they can be able to predict 
weather conditions and get that information out through its 
impact-based decision support services for the community to 
have that lead time.
    So we know that they're doing work to refine that model. 
There have been some concerns about the accuracy of it, in 
terms of working with certain terrain or weather conditions, 
but the Weather Service is aware of those. They're engaging 
their employees on the technical aspects, and making those 
refinements, and hopefully that, through IDSS, may help with 
the predictions. Thank you.
    Ms. Stevens. Thank you so much, and I yield back.
    Staff. Mr. Babin is recognized.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir, thank you very much, and thank you, 
Madam Chairwoman, and Ranking Member. And I also want to thank 
the witnesses today, it's very, very interesting. I have the 
honor of representing Southeast Texas, from Houston over 
basically to Louisiana, which, unfortunately, has been the 
center of devastating 500-year floods that seem to come almost 
yearly now. And 4 years ago Hurricane Harvey dumped the single 
largest amount of rainfall in recorded history in our country, 
and, in fact, North America, in mine, and also in Randy Weber's 
district, which is right next door. And since then we've had 
several hurricanes, tropical storms, leave much of Southeast 
Texas underwater, et cetera, and this sort of reoccurring 
devastation not only upends the lives of thousands of people, 
but has enormous implications on our Federal budget. These 
disasters every year leave the taxpayers responsible for 
colossal bills that are needed for recovery. Investing in 
money--excuse me, investing money in mitigation efforts seems 
to be an incredibly wise investment that could save billions of 
dollars every year in damage.
    So, Mr. Salna, I would ask you, since Hurricane Harvey, 
there has been a great effort to promote resilience in order to 
help communities be better prepared for future extreme weather 
events. FIU's Extreme Events Institute is at the forefront of 
reducing the impact of natural hazards through research and the 
advancement of technology that strengthens response, improves 
recovery, and mitigates exposure to risk. Can you please 
expound short--just a short answer, if you don't mind, upon the 
importance of mitigation efforts, and how the model that you're 
working on in Florida could be translated to different areas, 
such as East Texas--Southeast Texas?
    Mr. Salna. Sure, thank you.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Salna. So, resilience. That's the key word, right? And 
how can we all be more resilient? And another one of the words 
is mitigation. And as we know, we've heard of that formula, for 
every $1 spent on mitigation saves at least $6 in damage and 
cleanup, so it makes fiscal sense to do what we can on the 
front end, right, to build stronger, build better. So--test 
does that with testing infrastructure. That's related to 
building codes, where there's certainly room for improvement on 
building codes across the country. Florida is the leader, has 
the strongest building codes, and they can be replicated in 
other regions of the country, especially hurricane-prone 
States.
    And we have this model, the Florida Public Hurricane Loss 
Model, with the State of Florida and the Office of Insurance 
Regulation, and that's a model--now you can predict what the 
damage cost would be to a--following a storm. So that's a tool 
that will then verify, and then show you that if you do this 
kind of mitigation, you look at the savings you're going to 
make. So this is how we have to think. We can't do things like 
we've done in the past, when it comes to where we build and how 
we build.
    And, because our exposure has increased across the 
coastlines, and in Southeast Texas, you know, that exposure is 
there, buildings and people in harm's way, so we need to get 
them protected, we need to get them prepared, and so 
vulnerabilities, that's--need to look at, how is the 
infrastructure strengthened with building codes, preparedness, 
and safety, and getting together with emergency management is 
one of those team members in all of that.
    Mr. Babin. All right, great. Thank you. Thank you very 
much, Mr. Salna. Secondly, serving as the Ranking Member of the 
Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, I'm interested in the 
collaboration effort between NASA (National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration) and NOAA, particularly the longstanding 
issue of research to operations. And so, Dr. Uccellini, as the 
Director of the National Weather Service, you are well aware 
that the NWS is the very tip of the spear for operational 
weather forecasting, and your recently announced--you recently 
announced your retirement after decades of service, and I want 
to thank you for that. You've done an excellent job, and made 
this country, I think, a lot more secure and confident at the 
approaching storms that we have.
    But you recently--after your announcement, is there 
anything that you think should have--that you could've done 
better to enable that research to operations transition, but 
were unable to do for one reason or another? Just out of 
curiosity. If you would like to elaborate on that, I would 
appreciate it.
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, yes, actually, you're looking at 
someone who lived the research to operation--I worked at NASA 
for 11 years, established a research career, and then came over 
to the operational world to learn what the other half of the 
equation was. And one of the things that I did with my leaders 
that I left at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center was we 
established the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, 
and that's been very successful in bringing research satellite 
data to us, but also preparing us for the future operational 
data that we now implement in the models. And that includes not 
only the National Weather Services, but NESDIS (National 
Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service), the 
satellite service component of NOAA, and other researchers 
throughout the community, and it's really been a tremendous 
success.
    But there are other things that we can do. NASA has 
established an organization they call SPoRT (Short-term 
Prediction Research and Transition Center). Don't ask me to 
define the acronym, but what they've done is they've done 
research on our operational AWIP (Advanced Weather Interactive 
Processing) system that's in every local forecast office. 
They've brought advancements onto that system. What does that 
do? That allows us to get those advancements into the local 
forecast offices, into the national centers, faster, and we've 
been doing that. In fact, we've been doing that for fires, 
we've been doing that for floods, et cetera, et cetera. So we 
have a very strong relationship with NASA, and I hope that we--
that NOAA and NASA continue that kind of linkage as they move 
forward.
    Mr. Babin. Excellent. Thank you very much, and with that, 
Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Staff. Mr. McNerney is recognized.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the witnesses for your 
testimony this morning. It's really interesting to hear the 
evolution of the Weather Service, and what you've been able to 
accomplish over the years. So my first question will be to Dr. 
Uccellini. Over the past few years, California has been 
devastated by historic wildfire seasons. The Weather Service 
Incident Meteorologists, or the IMETs, are critical to helping 
our fire managers and incident commanders. You mentioned in 
your testimony the IMETs are being stretched too thin, with 
only 89 trained IMET forecasters, and 18 in training. What's 
the actual need for IMETs?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, the--we--we've actually been 
increasing the IMET numbers, and making them more available to 
these offices that--and to these areas that need it. We 
coordinated, of course, through the NIST (National Institute of 
Standards and Technology)--the group up in Idaho, and that's 
how our folks get assigned to the fires. The fact is we've just 
set a record this year now for the number of IMET deployments, 
but we've been increasing those numbers, and training.
    One of the stress points on this is that, with the fire 
season growing in time, you know, as--I think the fire 
community calls it a fire year now, that actually impacts on 
the training. You know, there's--the down time--used--you--we 
used to use the down time for training, continued training, 
because they have to be certified to be on the lines with the 
firefighters, and these are really brave souls that are out 
there fighting the fires, and the IMETs are actually right next 
to them, OK, right with them.
    So we have that kind of an issue, but we have worked very 
hard over the last 2 years, seeing this trend line, to get 
those numbers up. These IMETs are actually located in offices 
across the country, and as they're assigned, they fly in, and 
they go into the fire area. We've got--we--increasing the 
numbers, we're dealing with the struggle on time to make sure 
that they're all certified through training, and this year 
we've met the record, basically. We've broken the record 
numbers, and--yes, it's a stress point, but it's a stress that 
we're addressing, I believe.
    Mr. McNerney. Very good. Well, we expect the need for IMETs 
to be growing over the--in the next few years, especially with 
fire season coming around, and--or fire year, as you put it, 
coming around. Are we specifically addressing that need? Are 
you specifically addressing, or----
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes.
    Mr. McNerney [continuing]. Plan to address that need?
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes, and we're working through--the 
administration has cited this as a priority. We're working 
through the inter-agency approaches to this, and responding to 
the needs accordingly. But we are internally addressing this 
through training more IMETs, and making them readily available 
as requested.
    Mr. McNerney. What about the statutory pay limits for 
Federal workers? Is that a problem--a longstanding problem for 
your agencies?
    Dr. Uccellini. It's been a problem. I believe we're 
addressing it. Every year we work through the different 
processes. They've--they do get paid, but it's just that there 
is that--when you hit up against it, there's--let's put it this 
way, there are things that happened that we have to work 
through. We've been more proactive with that, and I believe 
that we're--we've got a smoother process in place to address 
it. And it's not just us, again, working as an individual 
agency. We have to go all the way up through top of government 
to deal with this issue.
    Mr. McNerney. Of course. Mr. Werner, have pay limits 
presented a barrier to the available IMETs as--from your 
perspective?
    Mr. Werner. Thank you. Absolutely, and I--we greatly 
appreciate Congresswoman Lofgren for introducing I believe a 
bill that's going to help our incident meteorologists, the 
Wildland Firefighter Fair Pay Act. Because what happens is they 
get up to a point, because they're out there so often right 
now, because the wildfires are so frequent, that they hit a pay 
cap, and they can no longer be deployed out there anymore. So 
if we get that--we release that pay cap, there are folks who 
are very dedicated, and will continue to work to support the 
folks out there on the fire.
    Mr. McNerney. What other obstacles are there, other than 
the pay limits?
    Mr. Werner. I think just because of the frequency. We need 
more IMETs, and to get them trained takes time. That's the big 
thing. And then there's also--we have a deal that we wrestle 
with is the pay cap, for a biweekly pay cap, where folks go out 
there and work on these fires, and they're putting in basically 
16-hour days, and--but they don't get paid for that until maybe 
several pay periods later, because the system doesn't react 
quick enough at times to go ahead and make sure that shows up 
in their paycheck when it should.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you. My time's expired. I yield back.
    Mr. Werner. Thank you.
    Staff. Mr. Baird is recognized. If no Mr. Baird, then Mr. 
Garcia is recognized.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, and thank you, Madam Chair, and 
Ranking Member Lucas, for this very timely and excellent 
Committee hearing, and thank you to our witnesses as well. Dr. 
Uccellini, I want to thank you for your service and your 
leadership over the last several years, and what you've brought 
for our country. It's a national security issue as much as 
anything else, so very important work you're doing--that you're 
all doing, frankly.
    I do want to touch on something that Mr. Johnson and Mr. 
Werner were pretty consistent about in their testimony, and 
specifically in their written testimony. I think they were 
tactful about it, but they're hitting at a fundamental problem 
right now within the National Weather Service, and that's the 
staffing issues that they mentioned. As an appropriator, I'm 
looking at your budgets, and I'm seeing continued growth from 
Fiscal Year 2017 through Fiscal Year 2021, so I don't think 
it's a funding problem, necessarily, and I do envision certain 
scenarios where actually you--we--you can have increasing 
budgets, and lower staff counts needed as a result of 
technologies evolving, efficiencies improving within that 
technology coordinate system.
    But it looks like, based on some of the written testimony 
we have in front of us, that the staffing needs are actually 
validated, and confirmed that we are well below what is 
absolutely necessary. And I do have a question about fire--
wildfire, especially in the West. I actually want to put more 
on your plate with regards to wildfire prediction, and 
modeling, and support of the public utility companies locally, 
but I also want to give Dr. Uccellini an opportunity to talk 
about what are the causal factors and potential remedies? It 
sounds like we all agree that the staffing issues, and getting 
people onboarded, are the long pole in the tent right now. Is 
it a retention problem, is it a recruiting problem, is it a 
process problem, what--just in the hiring process? How do we 
incentivize people to stay, and then come to the National 
Weather Service so that we can get back on step to where the 
staffing levels are matching the mission statements that we're 
providing you all?
    Dr. Uccellini. OK. So that's directed toward me, 
Representative----
    Mr. Garcia. Yes, sir.
    Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Garcia? Yes, OK.
    Mr. Garcia. Yes, sir.
    Dr. Uccellini. Just wanted to make sure. All right. So I 
just want to assure everyone, and this was also reviewed by the 
GAO, that, through our new budget process that we implemented 
in 2015, the portfolio process, where there's staffing in each 
portfolio, but they're concentrated--the staffing for the field 
is concentrated in what we call analyzed forecast support, that 
we've been very diligent in identifying not only the needs of 
how many people we have there, but how do we support those 
people getting the job done?
    And that's a balancing act within the budget process, and 
the budget process involves, you know, going through the 
executive branch, trying to get the requirements met through 
that process, and then bringing it to the Hill. And the final 
part of that, of course, is that we have to show our budget 
plan before any of the money is allotted, and we do list the 
number of FTEs (full-time equivalents). Those FTE counts are 
not up to what they probably should be, OK? We have--we go 
requirement by requirement, but that's what the money will buy, 
OK? From an FTE count, and from the--from those programs and 
activities that are needed to actually support them. Train 
them, get them the local travel that, you know, they can meet 
with the emergency management community, and every tabletop 
exercise, you can just go down the list. So--and we got 
reviewed by the GAO on that, and we were found that we do 
follow the amount of money allocated. We do--there's no 
impoundment of funds from what we have to pay our people. But 
that GAO review is actually quite specific, in terms of 
following the budget process, no impoundment, and mapping our--
--
    Mr. Garcia. So, Doctor----
    Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Hiring----
    Mr. Garcia [continuing]. Not to cut you off, but I only 
have--I have a--only have a minute. I just want to clarify my 
question. Are we saying, then, that this is actually a 
budgeting problem? Because the precipitous fall off in non-
managerials, non-supervisory employees chart that Dr. Werner, I 
think, presented showed that we went from about 3,900 FTEs down 
to 3,300 FTEs during budget increases, yet we're still 
understaffed, and Dr. Johnson mentioned that we don't have--the 
hiring process itself is taking too long. I just want to make 
sure that we're looking at this very clear-eyed internally, and 
I'm not trying to throw spears. I'm actually trying to give 
more work to you all, and put more on your plate with wildfires 
that we can talk offline about. But, internally, are you happy 
with the hiring processes, and the ability to get the FTEs on 
board in a timely fashion to support your mission requirements?
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes. If I may say that right now we're at 99 
percent staffing, which is pretty good. It's the highest 
staffing we've had since 2015. We're 150 over. Our hiring rate 
is at 98 days. This is a tremendous improvement over where we 
were, and I would say that, in working with the appropriations 
side of the Hill, I think we have convinced them that this is a 
funding--there is a funding component to the issue list that 
needs to be address. And the President's budget for Fiscal Year 
2022 does increase the budget in AFS, the analyze forecast 
support, and I think there's more that's going to be needed as 
we move forward.
    Mr. Garcia. OK. I'll--I'm out of time, so I'll have to 
yield back. I would just submit that the employee organization 
may be--the testimony there may be inconsistent with that 
assertion, but we can talk through that on the appropriations 
side. And, Mr. Werner, if you'd like to comment? I'm out of 
time, but I can yield back, I think, Chairwoman.
    Staff. Mr. Bowman is recognized.
    Mr. Werner. Thank you very much. I don't know how--how Dr. 
Uccellini came up with the 99 percent, and what they had done 
is not used what was in the table of organization, which the 
actual GAO used, and I think they called it the organizational 
table, in their 2017 study. They didn't like, really, the way 
the National Weather Service was kind of moving bodies around. 
But it's not at the number--I think it's something like 4,866 
which is in that organization, and for some reason they'd 
knocked that number down based on what they consider active 
positions and inactive positions. Why, only they could explain, 
but that number's, like, 4,623. So by the organizational table, 
which the GAO references in their 2017--we are not at 99 
percent staffing.
    Insofar as getting people into the organization, there are 
hundreds of candidates, I'm told, bidding on every position, 
just about, that's out there, so there's a lot of folks who 
want to participate, and get a chance to serve the public, and 
try to protect lives and property, would just love to get into 
the National Weather Service. So they're out there, we just 
need to bring them in.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir. I yield back.
    Staff. Mr. Bowman is recognized.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much. Dr. Uccellini, thank you for 
your testimony, and for your many years of service, and 
congratulations on your upcoming retirement. Thank you as well 
for highlighting the devastating impact of disasters like 
Hurricane Ida, which killed over 40 people in New York State, 
and led to the destruction and flooding of homes and schools in 
my district. In your view, given that unprecedented events like 
Ida will keep happening, what specific improvements to IDSS are 
most imperative now that could help prevent the kind of 
heartbreaking loss of life and damage that we saw in New York?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, one of the things to emphasize is 
that, when a situation like this happens, we--and with the 
emergency management community, the first responders, we--our 
job doesn't end when that event ends. We get back right away, 
OK? What can we do better? What happened on this particular 
case? What are the lessons learned? We try to get that 
turnaround rather quickly, because, you're right, it can happen 
again. And, I mean, this--you know, Ida was an unprecedented 
event. It's the first time we've issued a flash flood emergency 
for the entire area of New York City. All five boroughs, part 
of Nassau County to the east, part of Westchester County to the 
north, and it's the most extensive flooding--urban flooding 
that New York City has experienced.
    So it's--you know, how do you prepare for something like 
that if it's going to happen again, when it'll happen again? 
We've got to practice. Even if it's a relatively rare event 
now, it's a high impact event that we have to be ready for, 
and, quite frankly, we're going to have to learn how to message 
to that in a way--and it's not just us, it's the whole 
community, how will people respond to an event like that, 
right? So, you know, this is something that--it's a continuum. 
It's not, OK, that episode's over, we'll just move on to the 
next area that gets hit by rain. We're looking at these types 
of events to learn from them from a forecast and a response 
perspective, and we're doing it in partnership with the 
emergency management community.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you very much. My next question is for 
Mr. Salna, and it's about STEM education and climate jobs. 
Thank you for your testimony. As a former teacher and middle 
school principal, I appreciate your attention to community 
outreach and K to 12 education. When we talk about green jobs, 
weather forecasting may not be the first thing that typically 
comes to mind, but it's a perfect example of a career path that 
is both intellectually stimulating and essential for our 
future.
    At the same time, as you pointed out, all of our children, 
tomorrow's adults, need to understand the climate crisis, and 
they need to be able to identify and reject disinformation. I'm 
wondering if you can expand on your testimony to explain how 
the National Weather Service and other agencies can improve 
their own long-term capacity and effectiveness through 
investment in children and climate education. What kind of 
long-range thinking and planning do we need here so our young 
people are prepared for a wide range of STEM careers, and to 
thrive on a hotter planet?
    Mr. Salna. Well, thank you. Well, certainly it takes a team 
effort, as I described, but on the education front, you know, 
one thought is, you know, when it comes to weather science, and 
preparedness, and safety, in the curriculums, at the elementary 
and middle school level, there can definitely be increases so 
that we can get that education at that younger age, elementary, 
carry it to middle, then to high school, and that's so then 
they can get into this process of preparedness, and knowing 
where--you know, all about safety. And then that would then 
instill even more interest those--into those STEM careers, and 
into meteorology, atmospheric science, and climate studies, 
into the college level.
    So taking it through at a younger level, and getting them 
educated about it, and getting them inspired and excited about 
it as well. And so programs where--through the Weather Ready 
Nation Ambassador Program, where we work with schools, in 
conjunction with the media, and the National Weather Service, 
and, of course, the university, where we do bring in students. 
We have events where we bring in students of all ages and do 
weather STEM events, where we try and get very interactive, 
immersive, and to show them how exciting it is to get into 
these areas, but, at the same time, show them how important it 
is for their future as well.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much. I yield back.
    Staff. Mr. Baird is recognized.
    Mr. Baird. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member, 
and all the witnesses for being here today. It's a--it's really 
interesting. I always learn something from these Science 
Committee meetings. But my first question--Dr. Uccellini, I 
really respect your service to our country, and to the things 
you've done, but my first question goes to the idea that--we 
use high performance computing, including our emergency 
capabilities, to be edge to edge--century integration, and AI 
(artificial intelligence), and do those help the National 
Weather Service enhance their predictions? And how does this 
enable communities to mitigate the impacts of more frequent 
severe weather events?
    Dr. Uccellini. So, if I may, in answering that question, 
just note that there are really three fundamental components to 
making a numerical prediction system work, and making it work 
operationally at 99.9 percent reliability, which we do with the 
backup computer. But you have to have the computing capacity to 
do that, and historically weather prediction has been one of 
the main drivers for the--what we now call supercomputers. One 
of the original drivers for that, back in the 1960's, 1970's, 
and 1980's, is still one of the main drivers for that, so you 
need that. We need global observations.
    You know, all--I like to say all forecasts are local. You 
want to know what's going to happen in your backyard. They're 
all driven by global observing system, even at the 1-day 
marker. So that's where the importance of the satellite 
coverage comes in, for example, and other data sets, is that, 
you know, you just don't have one golden data set that can do 
it all, you need a collection of them. And then you get into 
the science and modeling for the data assimilation, and running 
the models themselves, and post-processing the models to 
extract the information from them. So those three fundamental 
components is what we're in the middle of, and what we're in 
partnership with the larger community to make all of that 
happen, private sector, academic communities, larger research 
labs, other agencies, all of the above.
    With respect to the AI and machine learning, it's becoming 
extremely important in several components of that forecast--
that model process, the post-processing, and extracting the 
information from the observations to get into the models in a 
way that they can be used to enhance the predictions. So we're 
there. We're there with that science and technology. We're the 
benefactors of it, and moving forward with that--we rely on it 
to not only do today's forecasts, but to prepare ourselves for 
the future, because, as you can see from this hearing, there's 
going to be increasing demands on what we can do to serve 
society, because the weather is getting more extreme, and the 
climate is a large part of that. And the vulnerability, by the 
way, is because we've got more people also living in more 
vulnerable areas, so all of the above is contributing to these 
increasing needs, and the modeling system, as I've just 
described, is going to be a key component in moving us forward.
    Mr. Baird. So, continuing in that vein, are you--or do 
your--does your agency have access to the Department of 
Energy's supercomputers? They've got three of the five fastest, 
I think, in the world, so do you----
    Dr. Uccellini. There are--OK. So there are research 
components of our agencies that have access to the computers, 
but Department of Energy, my--our--I would say our previous 
attempts to get some operational models onto their systems to 
be tested on those kinds of computers, because we do go through 
a 10 year procurement cycle to--and with 3 year blocks in 
there, to try to stay on top of the computing capacity 
advancements and computing technology that we see as we're now 
going toward the exascale type of abilities. But Department of 
Energy doesn't lend itself to having operational models on 
their systems for either test or use, so I would like to see 
something done in that regard. I've attempted several times in 
my career, but I haven't crossed the finish line with that 
effort.
    Mr. Baird. Well, thank you very much. And--looks like I've 
got about five seconds left. I wish I had time to ask questions 
of the other witnesses, but, with that, Madam Chair, I yield 
back.
    Staff. Mr. Foster is recognized.
    Mr. Foster. Well, thank you to the Chair and Ranking 
Member, and to our witnesses. I would also like to echo my 
congratulations and appreciation to Dr. Uccellini for his 
career and service to our country. He and I are both graduates 
of the University of Wisconsin, which, for more than a century, 
has been guided by something called The Wisconsin Idea, meaning 
that we should ``never be content until the beneficent 
influence of the university reaches every family in the 
State.'' As explained by Adlai Stevenson II, ``The Wisconsin 
tradition meant more than a simple belief in the people. It 
also meant faith in the application of intelligence and reason 
to the problems of society. It meant a deep conviction that the 
role of government was not to stumble along like a drunkard in 
the dark, but to light its way with the best torches of 
knowledge and understanding that it can find.'' There really 
can be no better embodiment of The Wisconsin Idea than Dr. 
Uccellini and his career.
    And, you know, as someone who grew up in Wisconsin, I have 
to say that there are things going on there that I do not 
recognize, and they seem to be directly antithetical to The 
Wisconsin Idea and everything it represents, but nationally, 
the Weather Service has itself been victimized by uninformed 
and politicized attacks that have nothing to do with facts, 
science, and logic, and that can't help with the recruitment 
challenges that NWS is facing. But I want to urge every young 
person with an interest in STEM to have a look at Dr. 
Uccellini's career as an example of the good that they can do 
with their STEM skills to make our planet a better place.
    And--now, in terms of--I'd also like to echo what others 
have said about the value of weather forecasting to keeping 
families safe in our districts. You know, when I was a child, 
someone was killed by a tornado, and our family lost a sailboat 
stored a few miles away on Lake Mendota in Madison. And, as a 
result, my mother bought a little emergency--you know, one of 
these little radio warning boxes, and she was always careful to 
test, and make sure the battery was still alive on it. 30 years 
later, the city of Plainfield, in the district that I represent 
in Illinois, suffered one of the most devastating tornadoes on 
record, and this past June, DuPage County, and nearby 
communities in the district I represent, faced their most 
severe tornado in nearly 50 years, rated F-3 by the National 
Weather Service. But because the NWS was able to issue a timely 
warning, and help local authorities prepare, not a single life 
was lost. The destruction, and homes and businesses, caused by 
the tornado was just devastating, but this really constitutes a 
success of our Nation's weather forecasting systems, which 
exist, first and foremost, to keep us all safe.
    And so I'd like, actually--my questions here, if I could 
return a little more to the AI aspects of it. You know, there 
were a spate of newspaper stories about--I think it was Deep 
Mind has, you know, won some contest for getting the best 
performance for local short term weather forecasting, and I was 
wondering if you're seeing the same trend in your 
supercomputing, more toward wanting AI engines than 
traditional, you know, vector pipeline machines. Is--are you 
seeing a shift in what you're going to be asking for from the 
next generations of these because of AI? Or do you end up--
pretty much just want more of the same?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, actually, we're--we were one of the 
first operational units in the world to go from vector machines 
to parallel processing, so we've been in parallel processing 
mode since 2001, and led the way on that.
    Mr. Foster. Um-hum.
    Dr. Uccellini. AI--the artificial intelligence and machine 
learning is certainly something that we are paying attention 
to, we are involved with, and it will influence how we operate, 
I think, over the next--especially over the latter part of this 
decade, in the sense that we'll be growing it, we'll be using 
it, and it will influence our next-generation computing. So 
you've got that technology. You also have the cloud technology. 
We use the system so much that we'll probably stick with an 
internal cloud-based system like we have now, but we'll see. 
You know, the things are changing really fast. But from an AI, 
machine learning perspective, we're--NOAA, working through 
NOAA, are making an--accelerated advances and use of that type 
of an approach.
    Mr. Foster. Um-hum. And if you could recommend turning up 
our investment in either getting a higher data point--higher 
density of data points, you know, throughout our country and 
the world, or more CPU (central processing unit) FLOPS 
(floating point operations per second), where's the highest 
return on investment there?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, the only--those three components I 
outlined, you're only as strong as your weakest link. And when 
I took over the Weather Service in 2013, we had computing 
capacity in which I could not transition models from the 
research component of NOAA. We had models sitting for five 
years before I could fit them onto the machine, with all the 
other responsibilities we have on that machine. We were way 
behind what the Europeans had for model capacity. It was one of 
the biggest issues that we faced.
    We're comparable now. So the point is that if you take away 
from any one of those components, CPU, the science, the global 
observations, it will slow down our move forward. Sorry to say 
that. You know, it's--everybody wants people to make a--you 
know, a list that has priorities in it, but we're only as 
strong as the weakest link when it comes to these modeling 
systems.
    Mr. Foster. Well, thank you for everything, and my time's 
up, and I yield back.
    Dr. Uccellini. And thank you for your kind words, and I do 
appreciate The Wisconsin Idea. I was transplanted into it from 
New York, that's where I grew up, but I certainly--it 
assimilated into everything that I learned there, and taking 
that into my dedication to public service.
    Staff. Mrs. Bice is recognized.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you so much. Thank you for--the witnesses 
for being here with us today. As a lifetime resident of the 
great State of Oklahoma, I know a thing or two about extreme 
weather, and importance of immediate weather reporting. Just 
yesterday morning, at 5 a.m., we had tornadoes touch down in my 
district, and my family was alerted because of the importance 
of the things that the National Weather Service does. I 
recognize that weather can change with only a moment's notice, 
and it's important that people at NOAA have the technology 
available to predict and prepare for these impacts. because of 
this, I recently introduced H.R. 5324, the NOAA Weather Radio 
Modernization Act, to update antiquated technology for weather 
radios to ensure no one is left behind during weather 
emergencies.
    Speaking of maintenance, updates for Weather Services, and 
technology, the budget reconciliation piece that came through 
this Committee contained $743 million for deferred maintenance 
for NOAA, while the administration's budget requested only $450 
million. That's an obviously very large difference toward 
maintenance that we've heard little about. Dr. Uccellini, what 
are some of the National Weather Service's priorities for 
maintenance, and is upgrading infrastructure and facilities 
important, or is just keeping them working and functional--
goal?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, we have a separate portfolio for our 
facilities, for, you know, what I say houses the Weather 
Service, and it is the smallest portfolio that we have. And 
we--you know, I came into a situation in which maintenance was 
at--of the facilities themselves were put on hold, and we made 
that a priority early on, the infrastructure. And I would say 
that it's still an issue. We're still catching up on the 
facilities, but also trying to--you know, some of these 
facilities we own, some of them we rent. When the lease comes 
up, we're looking for opportunities to co-locate with partners, 
and I think this is a very important factor that we look at, we 
take advantage when the opportunity presents itself, and we can 
get the resources to do it, but it's proven to be a big 
success.
    So that's one way of dealing with it, but we still have to 
maintain--and Houston is a great example of that, by the way, 
and so is Albany, coming up in November, opening up that new 
building that they have up there. We'll be co-located within 
Emergency Management College, the weather office, and right 
across the street from the State Emergency Operations Center. 
Those are the kinds of things we are looking for, but we have 
to deal with the maintenance of the facilities we're in today, 
and the infrastructure for our IT and dissemination program as 
well. So that's the budget balance that we are trying to work 
with as we work up through the system.
    Mrs. Bice. To sort of add on to that--and let me also say 
my apologies to Mr. Werner and Mr. Johnson for--and Mr. Salna 
for focusing some of these questions to Mr. Uccellini, and not 
giving you necessarily the time, but, talking about the Storm 
Prediction Center at the National Weather Center, and the Radar 
Operation Center in Norman, do you think that they are meeting 
their full operational capabilities, or could they use 
additional maintenance and upgrades?
    Dr. Uccellini. The--both units are really fantastic units. 
I mean, the rock is the basis for our NEXRAD (Next-Generation 
Radar). We do have the NEXRAD Service Life Extension Program. 
We're at year 7 of an 8 year, on time, and within budget, I 
just want to emphasize that. The--really incredible upgrade to 
the entire system, and they're, you know, fully focused on 
that. At the same time, we're trying to prepare for the next 
generation radars, and it's in that research area, which 
includes the OAR, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research 
component of NOAA, that we--you--we need to take a look at, 
because there is an interest in accelerating our way into the 
new generation of phase to ray radar systems. So there is that, 
but in terms of operating, I think we're really OK there. We've 
really advanced, and sustained really great work.
    The Storm Prediction Center has--you know, their staffing 
is secure. They move forward, they're there. I would say that 
as they--as the severe--you know, there's been a lull in the 
severe weather season, but we've had this great activity in the 
fire weather activity. They actually put the extended forecast 
out for the atmospheric conditions for fire. There are 
similarities there, except the lack of moisture, of course. But 
the point is that I think there's stress levels that are going 
to develop in that area, and will have to be looked at.
    Mrs. Bice. Great. Thank you, my time is expired. I yield 
back.
    Staff. Ms. Ross is recognized.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you so much, and thank you for holding this 
hearing, Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, and 
thanks to all of the panelists for joining us today for this 
very important discussion. My home State of North Carolina is 
particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, like floods and 
hurricanes, and that's why accurate, prompt weather forecasting 
from the National Weather Service is critical to protecting 
lives, personal property, and our infrastructure. But as we saw 
with the well-forecasted, and yet still deadly, 2011 tornado 
season, exceptional forecasts alone cannot protect lives, and 
rather it would require, as we've discussed, a whole of 
government approach, where the National Weather Service 
collaborates with local officials, individuals, and 
organizations responsible for making public safety decision. I 
look forward to talking about ways to increase this 
collaboration, and I want to build a little bit on what 
Representative Bowman raised about inspiring the next 
generation of scientists and forecasters.
    Here in Raleigh, North Carolina we have a wonderful newly 
renovated science museum that has a nature research center that 
has a component that focuses on the weather, and it brings in 
schoolchildren from all over the State to have hands-on 
experiences. It also encourages citizen scientists, and I'd 
like to know, from Dr. Uccellini, and maybe from Mr. Salna, 
what your experiences are with citizen scientists, and the--and 
collaboration from the community to--helping to not only 
publicize weather events, but also to help with public safety.
    Dr. Uccellini. OK. I guess I'll go first. We--I mean, I'm a 
firm believer, by the way, in the STEM education, and the 
citizen science aspect. I participate in the American 
Meteorological Society as the past president for now almost 25 
years of continuous work with their education, that's K through 
12, and what the Weather Service can bring to their programs, 
not only in terms of, you know, the--from a museum point of 
view, but real time data, so that the folks--the kids in the 
classroom can start, you know, making forecasts to see whether 
school's going to open the next day or not, right?
    So the thing is, firm believer in that. The citizen 
science--we have the Co-op Observing Program, about 3,000, and 
it's formed the backbone of the client--you know, we have a 
subset of those 3,000 that, you know, provides information for 
the climate statistics for this country. I get the opportunity 
to award these families that have been involved in this now for 
75 years, you know, Thomas Jefferson Award, you know, 50, 75. 
You know, it's just incredible to see the dedication, you know, 
all over the country, you know, of families that have passed 
this ability down so they don't lose the site, right? Because 
climate really important if you can keep the site maintained 
right and all that. It's really phenomenal.
    And having those award ceremonies, we do this virtually, 
has actually been a real plus because you get to see the 
excitement of what these people bring, and they still talk 
about their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers, or 
grandmothers who went out there in blizzards to get that daily 
observation, right? So it's really an amazing part of what we 
do, and we're trying to build on that, because with this type 
of technology, you know, everybody's got observations that they 
want to share with us, and in real time, that can make a big 
difference, right? So all I'm saying is just that it is a 
component that we embrace where we can, and certainly a big fan 
of it.
    Ms. Ross. Great. Mr. Salna, do you have anything to add?
    Mr. Salna. Sure, thank you. I just want to jump on the 
science museum concept, which is a big part of our team here in 
South Florida. So we have a big event called Eye of the Storm, 
and it's all about hurricane preparedness and science. And so 
we bring that event, with all our NOAA partners, emergency 
management, American Red Cross, all the agencies come together 
in a science museum environment that now brings a very 
interactive, very immersive, fun for the kids, and moms and 
dads. So we bring all this content into the museum, and it's 
been a very effective way to kick off our hurricane season here 
in South Florida.
    But the science museum in every community, they're the 
conduits of taking high level science from local university or 
research institutes to the community through their exhibits, 
and that's why we put the Wall of Wind exhibit there too, so we 
can explain the importance of wind engineering and mitigation.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Staff. Mr. Feenstra's recognized.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, and Ranking 
Member Lucas, and thank you to all our witnesses for their 
testimony today, and sharing extensive research and experience 
on these important subjects. Dr. Uccellini, I'm working on 
legislation that aims to create a research development testing 
evaluation program involving National Weather Service and NOAA 
Assistant Administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. 
It would focus on technology-based solutions to mitigate issues 
caused by radar obstruction. A key portion would involve 
consultation with the Inter-agency Council for Advancing 
Meteorological Services, ICAMS. The Department of Commerce, 
NWS, and NOAA are vital members of the Council, but it also 
includes input from departments and agencies. Can you elaborate 
on why it's so important to have Department of Transportation, 
Defense, Energy, and others at the table when meteorological 
policies and practices are discussed?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, I would say it's important in general 
because they're users of the information as well, and--as we 
make all of our observations and forecasts readily available. 
So, in general, it's important to have them at the table. With 
respect to the radar obstruction issues, we track the 
performance of our radars every day. We assess, you know, on an 
annual basis, with respect to obstruction issues, for example, 
related to growing trees, or now, working with the research 
institutes in some of these agencies, by the way, with respect 
to what's happening with the wind farms in the central part of 
the country that actually has now caused an obstruction within 
the return signal coming back to the radars.
    So, you know, we're very--you know, these are problems that 
are very complex, so you have to go where the science is, but 
also deal with the folks who are in the user community that 
have to rely on other things, like wind energy, for example, 
and what that would mean. So we're in that mix, and attempting 
to work with these folks have been, actually, rather 
successful, and, you know, we realize we have to solve these 
issues.
    There might come the day, though, that--especially in some 
areas with trees that--and other obstructions, people build 
buildings, that we have to move. We have to move the radar 
somewhere else. So that's an expensive proposition, you know, 
average $10 million a pop.
    So we don't do that lightly. But there are those examples 
already, where it looks like the only solution's that, when we 
get into this obstructed view, is to move. Very rare, but it 
can happen.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, I appreciate those comments, because, 
as you noted, I live in Iowa, and we have a lot of wind 
turbines, which are fantastic, but they do create some 
obstacles, obstructions, so--last month, when we had 
Administrator Spinrad testify, I asked him about the radar 
obstructions and technological solutions. Out of some of the 
possible solutions I raised to him, he mentioned his 
fascination with phased-array radar as a possible option for 
future weather detection. It also focuses on the future 
legislation I'm working on. Could you explain some of the 
benefits of phased-array radar that can complement our current 
radar systems?
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes. So one of the major benefits is that, 
with the way the phased-array radar works, you don't have the 
rotating parts, you don't have, you know, the extent of the 
vertical scans, which takes--all takes time to observe, and 
then to process. Could be minutes into--when we first put the 
NEXRADs out, it was a five minute period just to process all 
that data with these--with phased-array it's out and in, right? 
Part of it is the real fast access to the data. You know, 
minutes count in a tornado warning, so there's an advantage.
    One of the disadvantages is that one of the--or one of the 
advances we've made with the NEXRAD is something called dual 
pole radar. It's not just what you're doing laterally, it's the 
vertical aspect of it, which has allowed us to see better into 
the clouds, and the structures of the rain shafts, the 
potential rotation, the brief flow that actually signals a 
tornado on the ground can now be observed. The type of 
precipitation, the rate, the amount of precipitation falling is 
all enhanced with dual pole. It's not into phased-array yet, 
OK? That's a research issue. So we have to be careful as we 
move forward with these, and we are. We really do believe that 
phased-array radar is the call of the future, but we have to 
ensure that the research and technology adds to what we do now, 
it's not a step back from that. And I'm sure that the science 
and the technology is going to bring that answer to us, but we 
have to go through the steps.
    Mr. Feenstra. Well, thank you so much for your comments. 
Thanks for all your work, and each person that's on the--that's 
testified, thank you so much. I yield back.
    Staff. Mr. Casten is next.
    Mr. Casten. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Chairman, 
Ranking Member, and to our witnesses. I'd like to introduce for 
the record a paper written by James Hansen and Makiko Sato this 
past August, ``July Temperature Update: Faustian Payment Comes 
Due''. If I could have unanimous consent on that? I'll take 
that as a yes. The--Dr. Hansen's work is somewhat speculative, 
but he basically makes the observation in this paper that the--
our success at reducing particulate pollution may mean that we 
have dramatically understated future warming, that we're 
essentially taking particulate out of the air, and that has a 
very immediate effect on cooling, even as reducing CO2 
has a longer duration impact. And the kicker in his article is 
he says, ``We should expect that the global warming rate for 
the''--excuse me--``quarter century 2015 to 2040 to be about 
double the .18 degree Celsius per decade rate from 1970 to 
2015.'' That's obviously a bit of a gut punch.
    And, Dr. Uccellini, I don't want to confuse climate science 
and weather forecasting, but I am curious, from a computational 
perspective, if, in fact, we are seeing a--an acceleration in 
the rate of warming that is that quick? How much do you trust 
our computational tools and the weather system to model 
scenarios that are increasingly outside of the range of data 
we've historically been able to check against?
    Dr. Uccellini. That's a very interesting question. The fact 
is is that the equations we use in numerical weather prediction 
are the basics--the basic physics and dynamics that are also 
being used in the climate domain. We are accounting for now 
aerosols, particulate matter within these models. The--to get 
at the issues, though, that you're referring to, and I do 
have--this is Jim Hansen, right, that're you're----
    Mr. Casten. Yes, yes.
    Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Referring to? Yes.
    Mr. Casten. Yes.
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes. Yes. I have the greatest respect for 
him, and he's--he was--you know, he really has a lot of 
foresight, so this is something really worth listening to. 
That--we will need higher resolution models to effectively deal 
with the kinds of feedback mechanisms that he's referring to. 
From a point of view of a daily, weekly, and, you know, out to 
monthly type forecast, we will need higher resolution models to 
deal with that kind of feedback mechanism.
    And one of the things about the warmer atmosphere that I'm 
very concerned about is that, you know, we--in terms of 
predicting--and even determining the current precipitation rate 
with radars, these are based upon equations with statistical 
post-processing on past events. Well, like, in New York City, 
no--you don't have any past events that had 1.94 inches of rain 
in 1 hour that we got from Henri, and then 3.15--these are 
preliminary numbers--3.15 in 1 hour 2 weeks later, all right? 
So exactly the physics of that, and how that's working, is 
another part of the research equation that we're going to have 
to look into. So--and that's for observations, for short term 
forecasts, and for extended forecasts.
    So it's one of these challenges that we're going to have to 
embrace. I like to call it a grand challenge, because it's 
going to take basically the whole community to deal with this 
in the weather, the water, and the climate communities to 
collectively study these issues, and to allow us to make the 
advances on an operational basis.
    Mr. Casten. I know a lot of the--a lot of my colleagues 
have been asking you about staffing levels. Assume that we can 
assume the computational issues, should we be thinking about 
this primarily as a computational problem, or is it also a 
staff problem to go through and figure out--sort of ask the 
questions we haven't thought to ask before?
    Dr. Uccellini. Yes, and I think this is definitely relevant 
to the staffing, because there's going to be increasing demands 
for products and information, even on something like you've 
just brought up, that perhaps doesn't have the full attention 
today. As we become more susceptible to some of these feedback 
mechanisms, it's going to manifest itself in events that affect 
society, and once that starts happening, you're going to see 
the Weather Service right in the middle of this, in terms of 
making better forecasts, but also getting that information to 
decisionmakers that could likely go beyond the emergency 
managers and water resource managers we focus on today. The 
public safety lens will grow, and we'll be dealing with that as 
well.
    So, yes, I think--you know, I'm not disagreeing that there 
are staffing--I wish we could get more staff, but the point 
is--first of all, I've got to live within appropriation, which 
is my first rule, and second, we have to show--to get it to you 
folks that this is really needed. So--but I--I'm a firm 
believer that our services are going to grow, and it's not only 
going to be us, it's going to be the whole enterprise. I want 
to again emphasize what the private sector will be doing in 
this domain space as well. I think this is growth for the 
entire enterprise.
    Mr. Casten. Well, thank you, and I appreciate the Chair for 
letting you complete your answer. I'm out of time to continue 
this, but--I yield back, but not before wishing you a very 
happy retirement.
    Staff. Mr. Ellzey is recognized.
    Mr. Ellzey. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member 
Lucas. For those who don't know, Mike Garcia and I flew 
together in the Navy in combat in 2003, so we are the end users 
of the product that the National Weather Service has delivered, 
and it's essential to our success. And--so as a former Naval 
aviator, and a commercial airline pilot until very recently, 
weather forecasting has played a critical role in my ability to 
do my job and keep America safe.
    During my career I've relied on data provided from the NWS 
and its forecasters, and I'm forever grateful to these men and 
women who work around the clock to deliver accurate and 
reliable data. The National Weather Service is instrumental in 
our ability to protect property, save lives, and enhance our 
national economy, not to mention our security. After hearing 
and reading your testimonies, I believe that Congress must 
equip the organization with tools to better forecast weather 
events, and communicate those findings with the general public. 
And I'd like to also point out that Chairwoman Johnson and I, 
back in December 26 of 2015, were hit with a massive tornado, 
since we're in the middle of Tornado Alley, that literally 
jumped over my house, and led me to--while I was on a trip in 
Los Angeles as an airline pilot, my family was hiding in the 
closet, and spurred me to invest in a tornado shelter at our 
home.
    So this problem isn't going away. It's extremely important 
as a--and also, as a former airline pilot for a company that 
recently, this last weekend, had some issues both with weather 
and manning, I'd like to address this to Mr. Werner. Since the 
management and labor issue has always existed, there's always a 
tug of war between the two. You've identified a problem that 
you are--that, in your mind, you are understaffed, and that the 
GS construct with your work group isn't helpful. If I'm wrong 
there, please expound on that, and what are your solutions to 
getting the staffing up to the requirement that you need? Thank 
you.
    Mr. Werner. I didn't quite catch the last part of that 
question. The GS construct?
    Mr. Ellzey. GS-5 through 12. I mean, it's--I think you said 
that that's not working in the way it was intended. Second, 
third order effects rarely do, so I'd just like your thoughts 
on it.
    Mr. Werner. Yes, I think with regards to staffing--let me 
start out with this, is that we've firmly, totally, embraced 
impact-based decision support services. Let's just forget about 
the numbers. Well, we've been operating in that mode 
continuously for a number of years now, and we keep talking 
about possible unlocks to free up time. We haven't really fully 
realized those because things are still in the process of being 
developed, being tested out, what will work, what won't work. 
There's hypothesis what will come, but there are increasing, 
increasing demands on the service that we provide. And that's 
great, because you know what? We realize at the local level 
that they're really, really at a benefit, because most of the 
key decisions are actually at the local level, with the 
emergency managers and the public health officials, because 
they are the ones that makes the decisions that actually wind 
up protecting the community. So we're fully, fully invested in 
that.
    And I see the strain out there. I see lack of personnel in 
offices. I see people who have worked, over the last five 
years, 500 hours, and I've even been told up to 1,000 hours of 
overtime in 1 year. That's not sustainable. We've actually 
created new capabilities at the Hurricane Center. We made the 
storm surge unit there operational, with two Federal employees. 
It became operational last year, during our busiest, most 
active hurricane season ever, these two folks, during the 
pandemic, put in over 500 hours of extra time to support the 
mission. Thank goodness nobody caught COVID. So this is real, 
that this is going on.
    Now, as far as the five through 12 construct, that's a 
concept where the whole focus, and it shouldn't be the whole 
focus, is bringing bodies in, but we also need experience, 
right? I was alerted not long ago of an office that had three 
vacancies out of their staffing of eight meteorologists, they 
were down, three, OK? So they only had five now. And of those 
five, who had reached the full proficiency level of a GS-12 
level, I think there was only one, maybe two, was at that 
level. And normally an office at least has a lead forecaster, 
somebody who's a GS-12, who's proficient, and maybe another 
forecaster there. So that puts a burden on that office to 
provide the increased products and services to get that out.
    So we need to step back and go, wait a minute. When we see 
offices that do not have this experience, we need to stop. We 
need to go ahead and put out an announcement to allow an 11 or 
a 12 to move there, or do a lateral transfer prior to opening 
up this mass vacancy for new hires. You can do them in steps. 
So you're still filling the seats, but also giving people an 
opportunity to move. And there is frustration out there, I've 
spoke about this in a paper, where, prior to this five through 
12 construct, we had another construct where we had people that 
reached the grade of an 11, an internship, and they'd have say 
3 years under their belt, and then they would apply for the 
journey position as a 12. Well, when this started, they got 
shut out as they're unable to move. So, we have people who did 
research in say, convective weather, but they're someplace 
where they don't have convective weather, and they're someplace 
where they don't have convective weather. Talking about taking 
research to operations, and tropical weather as well, so 
they're frustrated, and they're moving out. So people are 
leaving----
    Mr. Ellzey. OK.
    Mr. Werner [continuing]. The seats that we need to keep in.
    Mr. Ellzey. OK. Thank you for your time, Mr. Werner. Mr. 
Uccellini, sorry we didn't get to you. My time is up, I yield 
back, and happy retirement, Mr. Uccellini. Thank you for your 
years of service.
    Dr. Uccellini. Thank you.
    Staff. Ms. Wild is recognized.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. 
My district is Pennsylvania 7th District, located squarely in 
the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, for those of you who know 
Pennsylvania geography, the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton are. We 
recently experienced a rash of flooding and damaged 
infrastructure as the aftermath of Hurricane Ida tore through 
our community. We had flooded roads, strong winds, lack of 
power, and serious debris that made it very difficult for 
businesses to reopen, for people to get to work and to school, 
and for the first responders to get those who were in need 
after the storm. I appreciate each of your testimonies so far 
on how we can make our country a Weather-Ready Nation, and I 
believe one key part of this aim is ensuring that extreme 
weather and disaster warnings are accessible and understandable 
to stakeholders, and to the public, in the face of such events, 
and I know that all of you have talked about that to some 
extent.
    In addition to emergency managers and first responders, key 
service providers, like our transit systems, healthcare 
systems, and schools need timely and accurate information to 
prepare for, and, of course, to respond to disasters. And in 
preparing their families and their homes for storms and floods, 
the general public needs quick access to well contextualized 
information on the timing, location, and severity of extreme 
weather risks. I have a constituent organization in my 
district, the Nurture Nature Center in Easton, Pennsylvania, 
that is working to answer these questions through social and 
behavioral research, and the group has received NOAA grants, 
among other agencies. This research can help inform how all 
levels of government can make disaster and extreme weather 
planning, communication, and management meet the needs of the 
public, and fulfill the mission that Congress laid out of 
protecting lives, property, and the national economy in the 
Weather Research Act of 2017.
    So, with all of that said, I'd like to start--Dr. 
Uccellini, could you discuss how the National Weather Service 
uses social and behavioral science research to strengthen its 
impact-based decision support services for community and 
emergency management partners?
    Dr. Uccellini. Thank you. Yes, with--going beyond the 
forecast, the warning, to interact with--directly with 
decisionmaking and influence that--comes the recognition that 
we're now entering the field of social science, and dealing 
with, you know, exactly how to message to get the best 
response, how to design products and services that map into 
specific key decision points, how to deal with the changing 
risk preference that people have. Even as you're going through 
a forecast, from 10 days out to the actual event, people have 
different risk preferences, and even the emergency management 
community will have a different tempo as you approach an event, 
so everything is affected from a human factors perspective.
    So we do have--now, at--we partner with other agencies, we 
partner with the line offices within NOAA to leverage off of 
their social science research. We have a small amount of work 
that's actually done in the Weather Service that's more focused 
on the products and services in assessing our messaging, and--
et cetera, et cetera, and we've already gotten feedback about 
simplifying our messaging through that activity that we're 
going to be implementing over the next 1 or 2 years. So this is 
becoming increasingly a bigger part of what we do and what we 
need.
    And certainly, with the organization that you referenced, 
there's work that's done that's focused on how to respond to 
water events, which is different, you know, than weather 
events, quite frankly. There are different aspects to it. So 
it's been very helpful to us, and it certainly has been a part 
of the successes we have seen to date, but we certainly have a 
much longer way to go in that area.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you. And I'm going to just shift gears 
because we, as you know, have very limited time, and ask Mr. 
Werner, based on your experience and your members' feedback, 
what types of training, professional development, and other 
resources can help support the employee pipeline, especially 
for new hires and young professionals at the Weather Service?
    Mr. Werner. I think--well, basically it requires a degree 
in meteorology to become a meteorologist. We also have folks 
who are interested in hydrology. That's another interest that 
we take in. We also have folks who--electronic technicians that 
come in as well. We also have physical scientists. I think that 
the big thing that we really need to do is go out there and 
actually sell ourselves, go to these schools, and actually show 
them what a career in the National Weather Service is all 
about.
    And we do that a lot sometimes at the local offices, or we 
did prior to the pandemic. We'd go to high schools, we'd go to 
colleges, and, you know, what does it take to get into this 
career. What do we do? Or come out to the office and 
participate in a forecast, look through this weather radar 
scenario. What interests you in this, what--and what are the 
requirements to get there? Which we don't set, but they're 
already laid out, and how do you go about doing that? Did I 
answer your question on that?
    Ms. Wild. Thank you. It's a--it--it's probably an open-
ended question that we could talk about all afternoon, but I 
thank----
    Mr. Werner. OK.
    Ms. Wild [continuing]. You very much for your input, and 
with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Staff. Mrs. Kim is recognized. Mrs. Kim? If you're ready, 
you're recognized. OK, I don't think we have Mrs. Kim available 
now. We'll go with Ms.--we'll give Mrs. Kim one last second. 
Mrs. Kim? OK, if Ms. Kim is not prepared, then we'll go with 
Ms. Stansbury.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair, 
for convening today's important panel, and thank you to Mr. 
Uccellini, you--for your service for so many years with the 
Weather Service. I'm sorry, I just mispronounced your name. 
Uccellini. As we all know, our communities are already 
experiencing the impacts of climate change, as many have said 
today, and extreme weather events, and these events are 
becoming more frequent all across the country, including in my 
home State here in New Mexico, and the National Weather Service 
plays such a pivotal role not just in weather forecasting, but 
increasingly in climate forecasting. And in order to enable to 
our communities to plan for and to respond to these events, and 
the changing climate, it is so vital that we are able to 
accurately model and develop tools and technologies, and to 
really translate and deliver that information to our community 
so that it can inform their decisionmaking on the ground. So 
this includes both responding to emergency situations, as we've 
talked so much about this morning, but also planning for and 
building a more resilient and sustainable infrastructure and 
future for our communities.
    So, to do that, our communities and our Federal partners 
really need resources to ensure that all parts of our country, 
including my home State, have sufficient staffing, technology, 
funding, et cetera, for real time observations for forecasting, 
for place-based tools, and to provide that on the ground 
technical assistance. And I think, like so many parts of the 
country, this year has really punctuated the need for those 
investments in New Mexico, where we have been simultaneously 
grappling with one of most severe droughts in our history at 
the same time that we've experienced the highest number of 
disaster declarations ever in our State's history due to 
flooding and to wildfires. So we are very much appreciative to 
the National Weather Service, who has been a fantastic partner 
in New Mexico, and provides, of course, regular briefings to 
our State and to our local partners through the Drought 
Monitoring Workgroup, and all of the services that you all 
provide.
    But New Mexico needs more support. We need more 
observational platforms, including things like dense Mesonets 
for improving near-term and short-term forecasts to help 
support our public safety and decision support. We don't have 
enough monitoring systems, and we really have severe 
limitations in our local weather forecasting. We also need more 
support for real-time precipitation and flood alert systems, 
especially in our urban areas, which are experiencing more 
severe weather incidents. And, just as we've been talking about 
all morning, we are also facing staffing shortages locally, 
which impact our forecasts, and drive talent to burn out 
quickly and leave the field. You know, the National Weather 
Service does perform outreach to our communities and to our 
schools, but there's so much more that we need to do to create 
a strong STEM pipeline so that New Mexicans can also take a--
take part in forecasting our future.
    Here in our State, we are home to communities that have 
lived on these lands for centuries, and since time immemorial, 
and our communities are experiencing and seeing climate change 
before our very eyes, and we need to make sure that they have 
the opportunity to not only have a seat at the table, but also 
to build that robust STEM work force across our communities, so 
we see that as being part and parcel of building our STEM work 
force through our public universities, our minority-serving 
institutions, our tribal colleges, and also partnerships with 
our two National Labs, who are themselves at the forefront of 
climate science and modeling. And so I urge all of our Federal 
agencies, including the Weather Service and NOAA at large, to 
look at expanding programs in New Mexico, and particularly at 
our minority serving institutions, and to really partner to 
build that pipeline in communities. So I look forward to 
working and supporting NOAA, and the Weather Service, and our 
Committee's work on these issues, and we know how critically 
important our weather and climate forecasting capabilities are 
to the future, the safety, security, and well-being of our 
communities.
    So, with that, Mr. Uccellini, I would like to just ask a 
couple of quick questions. You know, one of the big challenges 
from a science perspective is how to make that translational 
leap between weather and climate forecasting so that we can 
close the gap----
    Mrs. Kim. Emeril, thank you so much, OK? I will try to come 
back. Thank you.
    Ms. Stansbury [continuing]. To help our communities prepare 
and plan for the impacts of climate change, especially with 
extreme weather events. And what I wanted to ask you this 
morning is how can we help support the scientific and 
technological advances that are needed to close that gap 
between weather and climate forecasting, and how can we here in 
Congress help to support that work at the Weather Service?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, we clearly need support in that the 
weather/climate--I would say the weather/water/climate linkage 
is something that's being recognized as a fundamental issue 
that we need to build off of and address. The--you can't make 
advances in the weather domain space, or the water domain 
space, or the separate climate domain space, without the 
interactions amongst all of them, and this is something that 
we're really promoting as a basis for moving forward, and it 
certainly applies to the Southwest. And the monsoon, whether 
you get it or not, I know is a big deal out there. That's a 
forecast a year in advance, 6 months in advance, 3 months in 
advance, that people plan around, and that's a big challenge. 
We understand that. So it's something that we absolutely need 
to do.
    I also think, in terms of getting to your users, we really 
have shown success in our partnership with tribal nations 
across the country, and that's a success, again, built on a 
trusted relationship among the Weather Service personnel, and 
the tribal leaders, and the people there--out there, so we're 
really proud of that. Again, it's something we need to build 
off of, because all the things you've just mentioned, those 
threats are multiplied when you get into the tribal domains, or 
the poorer areas in any State. The impacts are amplified. So 
this is something that's certainly in our planning to deal with 
more as effectively as we can, let's just put it that way.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you. And I know I'm out of time here, 
but we very much look forward to working with the Weather 
Service, and I very much hope, as you all are moving forward, 
and doing your planning for staffing, and addressing many of 
the management and the staffing issues that have been discussed 
this morning, that you will lean into partnering with minority-
serving institutions to build that pipeline, because that's the 
future not only of our communities, but I think really the 
future of Federal service. So I want to thank you all, and I 
appreciate you being here this morning.
    Dr. Uccellini. Thank you.
    Staff. Mrs. Kim is recognized.
    Mrs. Kim. Well, thank you very much, Chairman, and I would 
like to thank our Ranking Member for holding this timely 
hearing. Actually, tomorrow I will be preparing to host a 
wildfire roundtable discussion, so this, you know, is very 
timely for me. And at our wildfire roundtable discussion 
tomorrow, we are looking to find cooperation--the system 
between Federal, State, and local stakeholders, and see how we 
can alert and predict mechanisms of wildfires, and emergency 
response, and public safety, so I really appreciate the 
conversation today.
    I represent California's 39th Congressional District, and 
my district is in Southern California, where the air quality is 
infamously poor due to smog and wildfire smog during the 
wildfire season. As a result, as you can see, the individuals 
with heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, as well as 
children, the elderly, and pregnant women in my district are at 
risk of these health complications due to poor air quality 
during wildfire season, so it's really important that we 
discuss the--accurately forecasting wildfire smog, because it's 
not only an environmental issue, but also an issue of public 
health.
    So, Dr. Uccellini, the question for you is what is the 
current state of our ability to predict smoke output and 
transport from a wildfire, and what questions do we need to 
answer in order to improve smoke forecast models, and what do--
and--improved smoke forecasts mean with regard to public health 
and safety?
    Dr. Uccellini. So it's a very important part of the health 
equation, with respect to fires, is the smoke. We have a number 
of models now that actually deal with particulate matter and 
smoke directly, and a very high resolution model, which has 
been implemented over the past several years, is actually what 
is--what we've seen on--the output from those models we've seen 
on TV, in terms of the movement of the smoke. I would also say 
that we've made great advancements in our satellite program. 
This is--the satellite component of NOAA, NESDIS, and in the 
launch of these geostationary satellites with high resolution, 
advanced baseline imagers. I mean, the smoke observations that 
come from them with the incredibly high resolution has just 
been phenomenal, actually. And another aspect of those is being 
able to spot the fires. It's become one of the earliest 
indicators that you've got a fire in your neighborhood, is what 
we're seeing on one of these ghost images.
    So, you know, we're there in providing the observations. 
With air quality forecasts, I would--I should note that we--
whatever we produce, we provide to the States and the local 
communities that actually make the air quality assessments, and 
related predictions. So--but we do have the tools--improved 
tools to get to them. Are they good enough from the health 
vector perspective? That's an interesting question. It's 
probably another basis for an extensive research effort to be 
able to have the more exact quantification of the smoke, the 
nature of the smoke, the size of the particles, et cetera, to 
be able to relate those to health, but that's certainly an 
interest in the larger community, the medical community, in 
terms of what can be done to assess locally, and then use the 
predictions to assess what's going to be happening downstream 
from those fires.
    Mrs. Kim. So would you say--I mean, or can I ask you, very 
frankly, how do you think we--I mean, how accurate are the 
National Weather Service's smoke forecasts?
    Dr. Uccellini. You know, we are doing--actually, the 
forecasts for the particulate matter and smoke is relatively 
good. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's--you 
know, they're as good as the--basically the dynamics in the 
flow field--in the atmosphere that moves those--the smoke and 
particulate matters will make it. And it's actually been pretty 
remarkable, I would say. I was--I'd been one of the main 
proponents when I was the head of the National Centers of 
Environmental Prediction. We actually introduced these models, 
working with EPA, and then--and with the research component of 
NOAA, which is out in Boulder, producing the higher resolution 
versions. I--you know, I think it's a pretty good product 
already, but like every other forecast system, they always have 
areas that need to be improved. I can't articulate them for you 
right now, but I can guarantee you that there's--there are 
researchers out in Boulder, Colorado who could.
    Mrs. Kim. Thank you. Gosh, I see that my time is up, but I 
wanted to talk about the next generation of meteorologists and 
scientists, because my home State's economy is heavily reliant 
on large STEM work force in many different sectors, so--gosh, 
I--but I am out of time. Chairwoman, do you--would you allow me 
maybe time to ask one more question regarding this? I mean----
    Chairwoman Johnson. If we have a second round, we'll come 
back.
    Mrs. Kim. OK. Well, thank you, then. I'll yield back.
    Staff. Mr. Tonko's recognized.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Thank you to Chair Johnson, and 
Ranking Member Lucas, for offering this stage of--for 
discussion on what is a very important role that--and, you 
know, the Weather Service plays in our country's security, and 
so I thank you for that, and I thank the witnesses for offering 
information to us today, which is very important as we go 
forward.
    Before I begin, I acknowledge Dr. Uccellini's 43-year 
career in public service, as well as his nine years of 
leadership at the helm of the National Weather Service. Doctor, 
you've dedicated over 50 years of your life to the field of 
meteorology, and therefore are leaving a legacy that will have 
a lasting influence for generations, so I indeed wish you the 
best, and for you and the team at NWS, thank you for your 
reliance on, and your respect for science, as it is indeed 
critical as this Nation addresses its national security and its 
response to the challenge of climate change.
    For many years I have been deeply concerned about several 
matters within the NWS, but specifically work force issues, and 
the reorganization of the National Weather Service forecast 
offices. I greatly appreciate the incredible and essential work 
that the NWS does, however, I have remained concerned for some 
time about the number of vacancies and hiring backlogs at the 
Weather Service. In the 2017 GAO report, some Weather Service 
staff said that because positions remained vacant for extended 
periods, they were concerned that the agency might be 
intentionally leaving vacant positions open to downsize the 
number of staff across operational units. So, Dr. Uccellini, 
does the National Weather Service indeed intend to downsize?
    Dr. Uccellini. No.
    Mr. Tonko. OK. In Fiscal Year 2016 the Weather Service's 
vacancy rate at its operational units was 11 percent. What is 
the current vacancy rate, both funded and--with both funded and 
unfunded vacancies?
    Dr. Uccellini. I can say--I have the number with respect to 
what we're appropriated for, and what's in our spend plan that 
was--been vetted with Congress as the money was being allotted, 
that we are up to about 99 percent now, with the baseline being 
what's in the appropriation bill, not the table of 
organization, which dates back to 2000. So I--if you will allow 
me, I can--I would like to just say that--I would say it's been 
since 2017 that we finally--all the stars lined up with respect 
to the processes, the hiring processes being improved within 
NOAA, and within the Weather Service, and being able to use 
programs like 5 through 12 to get more people into the Weather 
Service, we're 150--we have 150 more people in the Weather 
Service today than we had in 2017. This is related principally 
to the entry level coming through the Five through 12 Program, 
right? Mobilization doesn't change the bottom line. It moves 
holes from one office to another. What we----
    Mr. Tonko. OK. What----
    Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Want is a staffing that can do 
the job, and we're working hard to get that.
    Mr. Tonko. And I appreciate that. And, you know, Mr. 
Werner, you've opined that there, in your opinion, are vacant 
positions, and how--if that is the case, how would that impact 
the Weather Service's delivery of accurate forecasts and the 
IDSS?
    Mr. Werner. Well, it stresses the staff, and I think the 
big thing is there--we wind up having to limit the--what we can 
take on, so far as impact-based decision support services. And 
what is frustrating, if you're going for a time, and you have a 
partnership where you're providing this service, there's an 
expectation. It's a partnership. And then all of a sudden 
you're short staffed two or three bodies, and you no longer 
have the critical mass to do that. You have to pull back. That 
to me makes us look poorly as a partner when we're really 
trying to build relationships, and better serve the community.
    Mr. Tonko. OK. The 2021 GAO report that I co-requested with 
Chair Johnson, Representatives Crist, and Bonamici, recommended 
that the National Weather Service develop a two-way 
communication strategy for the Evolve Program that outlines how 
the agency will listen and respond to employee concerns. The 
report mentioned the National Weather Service had started 
working on a strategy in 2019. So, Dr. Uccellini, when will 
this communication strategy be finalized and released, who is 
developing it, and will it have buy-in from both employees and 
union members?
    Dr. Uccellini. So the strategy aspect is--well, first of 
all, since 2019 we now have a CBA (collective bargaining 
agreement) that--and I thank John Werner and his leadership on 
the union side, and Mary Erickson, who is Deputy Director of 
the Weather Service, really got together and pulled that 
together. Part of the strategy is--you know, is wrapped up in 
that we do invite new ECO to the table as we move forward. 
There are times, though, that there's certainly not agreement, 
and we are attempting to work that through, like right now, in 
the collaborative forecast process. There are discussions going 
on between the folks in the PMO and the union to bring this 
forward.
    So it's something that we're working on. Part of this is--
involves the staffing plan that would come out of, you know, 
trying to address the increasing demand signal that John has 
rightfully pointed to, by the way. We're certainly in solid 
agreement on that. The question is, how do we get that to the 
point where that can be funded along with everything else we 
have to do? So I just want to assure you that we're working on 
these plans, we're working to advance ourselves, and advance 
our staffing issues, within the budgets that we are 
appropriated.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Madam Chair, I had two other 
questions that I wanted to ask of both Dr. Uccellini and Mr. 
Werner. I'll get those to the Committee in writing, and will in 
advance thank the two gentlemen for their responses. So, with 
that, Madam Chair, I yield back, and again thank you. I'm sorry 
we ran over time.
    Dr. Uccellini. Thank you.
    Staff. Mr. Beyer is recognized.
    Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much, and, Madam Chair, thank you 
so much for putting this on. Dr. Uccellini, let me add my 
congratulations, and I hope you have lots of plans for your 
retirement. And Dr. Uccellini especially, because I'd love to 
know what you and the Weather Service are preparing for, in 
terms of the critical weather events in the years to come.
    You know, the global surface temperature has risen 1.1 
degrees Centigrade, compared to the years 1850 to 1900. This is 
from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 
report. The last time the Earth's surface was this warm was 
125,000 years ago. But that's not the bad news. The bad news is 
the IPCC now--their best estimate is three degrees Centigrade, 
so that's another 1.9, or almost two full degrees Centigrade 
from where we are right now, with all of the things that we 
have heard in the last two hours from my fellow Members of 
Congress. That range is 2-1/2 to--point--2.5 to 4.0 degrees 
Centigrade, and it will break the 1.5 mark, which was the Paris 
thing, sometime between 2025 and 2037. So what can the National 
Weather Service do now to get ready for ever more dramatic 
weather events, ever more dramatic changes in the ability to 
forecast what's coming?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, I can say that we are certainly aware 
of the increasing vulnerability--I would call it increasing 
vulnerability that our communities are facing with respect to 
these extreme events. Whether it's the coastline, winter 
storms, hurricanes, whether it's inland, with droughts, the 
flash droughts that are now becoming more prevalent in the 
Northern Midwest, the heat--I mean, you know, we talked about 
the northwest part of this country, there were heat events this 
year that rivaled the records that are the--that you see in 
Phoenix, OK? It's really--and, of course, the fire--the fires 
are burning faster and hotter, and impacting society.
    So we are trying to step up our game with respect to the 
ability to forecast the extremity of these events, which will 
likely grow. To deal with the vulnerability of the communities, 
we have to work in partnerships. This is really the key to a 
Weather-Ready Nation, is that--those public safety officials, 
the emergency management, the water resource management. And 
one of the things we recognize, and this gets back to John's 
concern, John Werner's concerns, most of the decisions on 
public safety in this country are made at the local levels, all 
right? Tocqueville discovered that in 1835, published it in 
1838, and it's still true today. So we have to provide this 
consistent and accurate information to all government levels, 
but it's the local presence that's going to be put under extra 
stress, in terms of dealing with this, whether it's us making 
the forecasts and warnings over extended period of time, or the 
public safety officials that are out there on the ground 
evacuating people, who are dealing with the community issues, 
to react. So all----
    Mr. Beyer. OK. Thank you.
    Dr. Uccellini [continuing]. Of the above. We're all going 
to be challenged.
    Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Uccellini. Let me pivot. Mr. 
Werner, we talked about the 500 vacancies, and there's some 
ambiguity of how much there is, but why 98 days? You know, I'm 
a private sector guy, and I can't imagine taking 98 days to 
hire anybody. You know, the background check can be done in two 
days, check their references in five days. Mr. Werner?
    Mr. Werner. You're asking me that? I don't know why it 
takes that long. Apparently it's actually--supposedly, from 
what I've been told, it's sped up somewhat.
    Mr. Beyer. Yes, yes.
    Mr. Werner. I have no idea. I think our system was broke, 
and they're trying to get it better. I have no idea why it 
takes that long. I think it should be a lot quicker than that. 
And there is also another mechanism we could use, with doing 
lateral assignments prior to doing the external mass hirings, 
it's called the NOAA Reassignment Opportunity Notice, that gets 
people in a lot quicker because they're already status 
employees, to take care of that experience gap, and then do the 
external mass hirings to fill in those seats. But why those are 
going to take 90 to 98 days, I have no idea.
    Mr. Beyer. So, Dr. Uccellini, I know it's better, but why 
is it still so long?
    Dr. Uccellini. Well, you know, this is a process that 
involves--the 98 days is getting the announcement out, you 
know, getting people to apply, getting it reviewed, right? 
Going through the--going through that process takes a month or 
two, and then actually getting people to--you know, they apply, 
but they don't necessarily agree--then you've got to go through 
the security checks. The security checks have gotten, actually, 
a lot better. That used to be the tall pole in the tent, and 
we've worked that. That's point one.
    Point two is, with respect to--and there's so many 
resources that you have in the human resource area that it's 
not just a problem in the Weather Service, it's a problem 
throughout NOAA. I don't have a hiring component within the 
Weather Service. I have to rely on NOAA, and they're improving 
tremendously. So we've got to work through that, but we're--98 
days is a marked improvement over where we were before.
    And I would also say that there are people who get that 
hiring--they're in school, that need another month. That all 
adds up to the average time of when you actually fill the seat. 
So--but that's--let me assure you that we're not the private 
sector, that's able to do that, but we are finding ways to 
accelerate where we can.
    Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I, of course, 
yield back.
    Staff. Chairwoman Johnson, all of the Members have asked 
questions, and I think you can close out the hearing whenever 
you're ready.
    Chairwoman Johnson. To the staff, do we have time for a 
second round?
    Staff. That's entirely up to you, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Johnson. Well, let me just suggest perhaps that 
those who had questions, I know that one of the Members already 
said that, if they would--I only heard maybe two that needed 
other time, if you will submit your questions to the Committee, 
we will then submit them to the witnesses. And let me say thank 
you to all of our witnesses. This has been a very dynamic 
hearing, and I appreciate you spending your time with us. 
Before we bring the hearing to a close, I want to make sure 
that every single witness receives a very hearty thank you, and 
appreciate the knowledge you've shared.
    The record will remain open for two weeks for additional 
statements for Members, and for any additional questions the 
Committee may ask the witnesses. So our witnesses are now 
dismissed, and our Committee hearing is closed.
    [Whereupon, at 1:59 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                               Appendix I

                              ----------                              


                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions


[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                                 [all]