California Drought: What Can NOAA Science Do For You?

Abstract:

NOAA has a history dating back to 1957 of conducting formal service assessments to improve its weather forecast and warning program for weather phenomena including tornadoes, floods, storms, and hurricanes. Despite drought being the most costly natural disaster in the US, there has not been a similar assessment of NOAA services to support decision makers impacted by drought until now. NOAA has recently conducted its first ever services assessment focused on the ongoing drought in California. This assessment will describe decisions impacted by drought in the water resources, agriculture, fisheries, and municipal governance sectors and identify recommendations for NOAA to improve the science based services it provides to those sectors. This assessment was conducted by a 9 member team of diverse NOAA staff as well as the California State Climatologist. The team’s findings and recommendations are based on mostly in person interviews conducted with over 100 decision makers in the key sectors. The team’s findings and recommendations will be reported in a NOAA report due out in 2015.