I. Introduction a Human Or Meteorologist

A Human Over the Loop Forecast Paradigm at The and we will document highlights of a survey of TWC Weather Company (TWC) forecasters on HOTL usage and experience. Bruce L. Rose, Dale Eck, Leon Brown, Andrew Tupaj, I. Introduction James Lidrbauch, Paul Bayer and Lauren Merritt – The A Human or Meteorologist in the Loop (HOTL) Weather Company, Atlanta, Gerogia. process was implemented at The Weather Corresponding author address: [email protected] Company in Atlanta, GA. The HOTL software is Despite the emergence of full forecast automation for a few built atop the Weather Services International weather providers, there would appear to be some consensus weather graphics system called TruView Max. in the weather prediction community that a fully automated HOTL workstations interact with a centralized end-to-end forecast system remains approximately 10-20 years away. Despite this need, the crucial lag of time datastore of forecaster-initiated changes in inherent in the human editing of objective guidance prior to Atlanta, Birmingham England, and Andover, publishing of the weather forecasts is increasingly Massachusetts. The forecaster change transactions problematic. In the case of TWC, the legacy human in the loop (HITL) man-machine process added at least 2 hours delay or objects only impact the downstream forecast in the numerical weather prediction, human forecast editing, products when they are requested via a forecast and forecast publishing assembly line [and this delay notwithstanding the versioning or provenance of the API. By partitioning weather forecast guidance and underlying guidance]. In late 2012 it became clear to TWC forecaster alterations until post-production – one that a Human-Over-the-Loop (HOTL) or lag-less forecast can eliminate delays that are typically associated process was desirable to bridge the “Age” of the traditional human-directed forecast process and the coming “Age” of a with Human in the Loop (HITL) forecast true end-to-end automated forecast process. As summarized intervention. in Neilley et. al. (2015), The Weather Company 24 x 7 global forecast operations shifted from a HITL process to a HOTL The transition to a HOTL process was part of a process in Summer of 2014. The human and machine migration is described in this extended abstract. The HOTL larger migration of the end to end forecast system software tool is built atop a powerful graphics engine that in place at TWC (Neilley at. al., 2015). There was allows for rich visualization of most current and forecast discussion of moving to a fully automated end to weather information that exists in the public cloud and within TWC’s weather infrastructure. forecast that included smart ensembling of model and statistical forecasts, and then fully automated Concurrently, forecasters draw polygonal areas and assign a rich set of properties to these objects that either [a] constrain post-processing of that objective guidance into parts of the digital hourly forecast in a predefined but relative consumer and business-ready products. The manner, [b] add value to the computer worded forecast via direct human oversight, [c] expound on local and hyper-local science and meteorology team at TWC was able to weather conditions of high impact or extraordinary nature convince stakeholders that an optimal solution that would be impossible for the machine to circumscribe or form the standpoint of cost, resources, and identify, and [d] alter or manage weights that control the blend of precipitation forecasts in the upstream guidance forecast skill needed to include a human system. Forecaster responsibility [a] are termed Weather component in the forecast loop – and that this Filters, [b] are a legacy function called Qualifiers, [c] is a component was likely viable for a 10-20 year functionality called Blurbs, and [d] is a background weight- changing paradigm in the Digital Forecast system that is window into the future. called Short-term Weight Management or SWiM. In all cases, the application of these human-directed forecast changes and We agreed on a compromise that would eliminate forecast amplifications are done post hoc or just in time – any delay in forecast publishing as a result of eliminating all human-forecaster time lag from the end-to- end process. This paper will discuss the philosophy of the new forecaster intervention. This led to a HOTL-based forecast paradigm, and the responsibilities of the new HOTL system that managed the continuous flow of forecaster, including the experiences of transition from the HITL to the HOTL environment. An overview of the HOTL tool forecasts from upstream guidance to products and results from the first year of HOTL usage will be detailed, without the interruption of that flow. This migration worked surprisingly well and we are 1. More explicit points from the native system now approaching the end of our first year of HOTL to reflect the higher resolution of modern usage. We have a digital forecast at 4km world- NWP wide at one hour resolution through 384 hours. 2. Reduce the delay inherent in human This includes a 6 hour forecast at 15 minute forecaster intervention resolution that is also subject to HOTL oversight 3. Merge the two distinct short-term (0-6 and intervention. Forecast alterations routinely hours) and long-term (1-15 day) forecast occur in CONUS and Europe domains (as before) processes or systems especially within the first 48 hours. Pre and post- 4. Provide more flexibility and universality HOTL forecast verifications show improved with respect to downstream product temperature and precipitation forecasts (year over creation comparisons) but much of this improvement comes TWC did consider full end-end automation to via the conversion of the core forecast system overcome the delay of human intervention. (Neilley et. al. 2015). However, tt was believed that the human In this paper, we explore the conceptual evolution forecaster was adding value to both short and long of HOTL, provide some details on the software term forecast within about 60 hours, especially realization of HOTL, and also provide some with precipitation forecasts and forecasts of forecaster feedback and insight from the first year unusual or high-impact weather. Full automation of usage. was considered a bridge too far, thus we pursued a HOTL solution with the following characteristics: II. The HOTL Concept 1. The smart ensemble or composite forecast The Forecaster or Meteorologist Over the Loop guidance (we call this gDicast) would concept is commonly “in the air” at recent experience no time delay or buttoning up professional meetings and fora. Conceptually, period. The budget for forecasters to there is a potential MOTL (Meteorologist over the validate and tune the guidance was 0 Loop) or HOTL component to the NWS/FAA seconds. NextGen strategy and it is a common subtext of on- 2. We rejected the paradigm of forecasters going discussions of the future role of the human adjusting upstream initial conditions or forecaster (see for example, Sills, 2009 for a good ensemble inputs as a primary intervention literature review and Stuart et. al. 2006 in the tool. We did allow that forecasters had context of the man-machine mix). control over the parameterization of the In the case of TWC, an elaborate compute system ensemble or composite forecast, but we did for forecast editing and intervention was in place. not expect this to take place in any near And this system called the Digital Intervention Tool real-time sense. (Digit), was part of a full end-end system of 3. We wanted to retain some very good guidance production to forecast editing to post- aspects of the legacy system with respect to process to publication and products. the forecaster adding qualifications and context to the digital forecasts (called The end to end system served TWC well over 12 Qualifiers, these allow a long list of years, but was in need of updating in the following refinements to forecasts without changing areas: their digital make-up.) An example of a Qualifier would be “scattered frost” added in Atlanta, GA. There are some annotations by a human to a cold, crisp autumn forecast provided in brackets that may clarify or define in Missouri. special nomenclature or references to specific tools 4. We wished to add the ability for the senior or processes with respect to TWC. shift forecaster to “speak” more directly to The second appendix is a document that was consumers. A geographic point and shoot developed as a concept of operations “day in the method for text or other information to life” of the HOTL forecaster. His name is Marco, flow from forecaster to user. and his fictitious work shift takes place in late fall Figure 2.1 shows an example of the completed when interesting or high impact weather is HOTL client. There are weather “underlays” to expected in different parts of the CONUS. help guide the forecaster in placing filters, it is hoped that these project documents from our qualifiers, and blurbs (FBQ’s) that constrain, alter, experience with a changing HITL to HOTL paradigm and amplify the consumer forecasts that ultimately may help others in the weather enterprise facing are produced from the high resolution gridded the questions surrounding the future role of the sensible weather. human forecaster in our rapidly changing HOTL software was launched in July of 2014. Thus, discipline. the HOTL forecasters have worked through 4 seasons of operations on the new paradigm and the new software. We provide two appendices in this extended abstract. The first is feedback from a recent survey of the operational HOTL forecasters in the US office Figure 2.1 – The HOTL graphical user interface runs on Windows machines and is composed of a graphics work area sowing some portion of the earth, GIS layers, and weather “underlays”.

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