GSL's Darrel Kingfield is NOAA's Employee of the Month!

Dr. Kingfield is honored for skillfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic to implement the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Hazard Services workflows that will greatly modernize the forecast and warning operations at National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs).

The operational implementation of Hazard Services workflows became significantly delayed due to slowdowns in the releases of new AWIPS updates, NWS office staffing shortages due to social distancing policies, and other factors amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this long period of uncertainty, Dr. Kingfield and his team at the Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) coordinated with the Office of Central Processing (CP) on the development of an AWIPS Test Authorization Note (ATAN) that allows for WFOs to opt-in and evaluate future Hazard Services software components. Dr. Kingfield performed most of the activities supporting this ATAN and led a small support team in the development of new releases, user configuration documentation, training, and the demonstration of best practices on how to effectively use the Hazard Services software system. The Hazard Services ATAN had participation from around 1 out of 6 NWS offices from the Fall of 2020 to the present day.

Offices initially began their evaluation of winter weather hazards by comparing the product generation workflow in Hazard Services to the legacy generation system and provided feedback back to GSL on weekly calls and a group email list. This iterative feedback process allowed for software changes to be developed by GSL and deployed rapidly back to offices for additional evaluation. By the middle of winter 2020, several offices became confident with the software and began issuing operational winter weather watches/warnings/advisories from Hazard Services to alert the public of imminent threats. By the late winter/early spring of 2021, more offices activated both Winter Weather and Non-Precipitation weather workflow for operational product generation. Several hundred Winter Weather and Non-Precipitation weather products were issued to the public by the end of Spring 2021. Without this field evaluation, it would have been over two years before such a widespread evaluation of these capabilities would have occurred and there would have been limited time to make any significant changes to the software.

The operational implementation of Hazard Services workflows became significantly delayed due to slowdowns in the releases of new Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) updates, NOAA National Weather Service office staffing shortages due to social distancing policies, and other factors amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this long period of uncertainty, Dr. Kingfield skillfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate and implement the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Hazard Services workflows that will greatly modernize the forecast and warning operations at NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). By the middle of winter 2020, several offices became confident with the software and began issuing operational winter weather watches/warnings/advisories from Hazard Services to alert the public of imminent threats. By the late winter/early spring of 2021, more offices activated both Winter Weather and Non-Precipitation weather workflow for operational product generation. Without this field evaluation, it would have been over two years before such a widespread evaluation of these capabilities would have occurred and there would have been limited time to make any significant changes to the software