Bulletin Arnerican Meteorological Society Acknowledgments. I am grateful to Gardner Perry III, Cooley, D. S., and R. G. Derouin, 1972: Long term verifica- Robert S. Crosby, and C. Reed Hodgin, of MIT, for tion trends of forecasts by the National Weather Service. assistance in various phases of the work, and to all those NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS FCST-18, Washing- participating forecasters who over the years have been ton, D.C. Epstein, E. S., 1969: A scoring system for probability fore- willing to lay their egos on the line. casts of ranked categories. J. Appl. Meteor., 8, 985-987. Klein, W. H., and F. Lewis, 1970: Computer forecasts of References maximum and minimum temperatures. J. Appl. Meteor., 9, Brier, G. W., 1950: Verification of forecasts expressed in 350-359. terms of probability. Mon. Wea. Rev., 78, 1-3. Murphy, A. H., 1971: A note on the ranked probability score. Brown, H. E., and E. B. Fawcett, 1972: Use of numerical J. Appl. Meteor., 10, 155-156. guidance at the National Weather Services National Mete- Sanders, F., 1963: On subjective probability forecasting, J. orological Center. J. Appl. Meteor., 11, 1175-1182. Appl. Meteor., 2, 191-201. announcements NACOA urges better resource management transition to substantial use of offshore and foreign oil and Urging more effective organization of federal activities in gas, and energy from nonconventional sources. natural resource management, the National Advisory Com- NACOA supported Coastal Zone Management legisla- mittee on Oceans and Atmosphere (NACOA) gave strong tion enacted last year but recommended a "substantive start support in its Second Annual Report to a cabinet-level De- in funding existing legislation." Fortunately, $5 million has partment of Natural Resources. been made part of the FY 1974 supplemental budget request The 25-member advisory committee (with no federal em- since the report was writen. ployees) was created by Congress in 1971. (For additional Concerning atmospheric activities, the Committee noted background on NACOA, see BULLETIN. 54, 419-424.) It is that the United States has led in the advances of recent required by law to maintain a continuing review of the years in observing, describing, understanding, and simulating marine and atmospheric science programs of the United large-scale atmospheric behavior. It then suggested increasing States and to submit reports to the President and Congress. the relative effort on smaller-scale intense meteorological The Chairman is Dr. William A. Nierenberg, Director of the phenomena, such as flash floods, tornadoes, severe hail, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. on local forecasting to increase the value of weather fore- In its Second Annual Report to the President and Congress casting to weather-sensitive activities. NACOA repeated the released 31 August 1973, the Committee observed "a dis- recommendation of its Special Report on Hurricane Agnes persal of management and a withdrawal of support from floods that public response to forecasts and warnings needs long-range centralized endeavors which could result in careful study in order to improve their usefulness. trouble." Noting that the federal budget crisis was less severe In regard to weather modification the Committee as- than it appeared to be earlier in the year, NACOA urged serted that "although we appear to stand on the threshold of the President to direct a reconsideration of high priority practical weather modification, and some limited aspects are needs in ocean and atmospheric affairs. now operational, not enough is known about it to make it The report comments on a number of controversial topics: ready for general operational use." They stressed the fact resource management organization, energy, the coastal zone, that not only physical research, but also careful study of atmospheric affairs, and fisheries. The Committee found social, legal, and economic questions must be carried out. In management of land, water, and atmospheric resources so the area of fisheries management NACOA again emphasized conservation, the "species approach," and the need for interrelated that they should be joined organizationally, and planning on a national scale. stressed the fact that they are primarily interested in seeing "A Report to the President and the Congress by the Na- that oceanic and atmospheric efforts were given a focus which tional Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, recognizes their unique and special characteristics. Second Annual Report, June 20, 1973," is available from the In a chapter on "Energy and the Oceans," the Committee Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing said that the oceans could and must play an increasing role Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 at 55 cents per copy. in serving energy needs of the United States during the (More announcements on page 1182) 1179 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/09/21 07:07 PM UTC Vol. 54, No. 11, November 1973 had done so, like Amundsen, he would have probably made good map of Antarctica, showing all the past and present it back. On page 25, the Australian station Mawson was stations, and identifying them as such, would have been already in existence before the IGY started, as the only con- useful. The two small maps on pages XV and 3 are tinental station outside the Antarctica peninsula area. The inadequate. frequent references to the Bulletin are somewhat confusing All these are minor shortcomings, however, which do not to non-Bulletin readers. The introductory paragraphs, such as seriously detract from the value of the book as a readable the one on page 64, are sometimes written in both the first and interesting source of information on a wide range of and third person, which is also confusing. At the bottom of topics, dealing with the why? and how? of U.S. and foreign page 74, one or several lines are missing, and so one. Also, a activities on this fascinating continent.—Gunter Weller (Continued from announcements, page 1179) The National Weather Service's river and flood forecast and warning services would be extended throughout the Improved national disaster warning system United States; the installation of more than 100 automatic Federal agencies have announced plans for improved natural alarm devices will guard against flash floods, and hydrologic disaster warning and preparedness, designed to reduce the specialists would be trained to provide technical assistance nation's loss of life and estimated $10 billion annual eco- in establishing flash flood warning systems. nomic losses from such disasters. The long-range effort de- For more accurate information on hurricanes, NOAA re- scribed in "A Federal Plan for Natural Disaster Warning and search aircraft and Air Force reconnaissance planes are being Preparedness" includes activities of all U.S. agencies with re- equipped with improved airborne automated data-acquisition sponsibilities related to public warnings and preparedness systems. Development of computerized hurricane prediction for hurricanes and storm surges, tornadoes and severe local techniques will be continued, and a modern data-handling storms, fire weather, severe winter weather, river and flash and display system will be developed for NOAA's National floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, frosts and freezes, Hurricane Center in Miami. The automated technique re- landslides and avalanches, and volcanic eruptions. The plan cently devised for predicting hurricane storm surges would responds to actions emphasized in the President's 1972 mes- be extended to 10 additional points on the east coast. Maps sage to Congress, the report to Congress on Disaster Pre- showing hurricane evacuation routes, now available for four paredness by the former Office of Emergency Preparedness, coastal areas, would be prepared for all low-lying areas of and the special analysis of the Hurricane Agnes floods by the east and Gulf coasts to aid local officials in planning for the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. evacuation of endangered areas. The Project Stormfury hur- The newly published plan states that although the United ricane modification research program is scheduled to be States operates the most efficient disaster warning system in resumed in the Pacific during Fiscal Year 1976. the world, each year natural disasters exact an enormous An important aspect of the plan is implementation of a toll of lives, suffering, and economic losses. The new plan NOAA-proposed system known as AFOS (Automation of is designed to reduce this toll by significantly improving the Field Operations and Services, see news and notes, page accuracy and timeliness of warnings by making warnings 1195). Warning dissemination will also be improved by the available to all who need them and, at the same time, de- extension of NOAA's Weather Wire Service, now in 25 veloping the capability to warn only threatened areas, and states, throughout the nation to transmit timely weather by making assistance in preparedness planning available to forecast and warning information to news media. NOAA's all communities. network of VHF-FM continuous weather broadcast stations A major improvement in the system will be achieved with would be expanded over the next five years from 63 to about the orbiting of the Geostationary Operational Environ- 300 installations, bringing the service to most large urban mental Satellite (GOES) which will provide near continuous areas and to coastal regions with extensive fishing and surveillance of severe storms will also relay atmospheric, recreational