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~'. ." .' ; , WEATHER FORECASTING/OPERATIONAL PLANNING Television weather programs provide a good first-order indication of expected storm development within the operational area. However, these programs are insufficient in the kind of information required to successfully conduct an operational weather modification program. Specific operational weather forecasts were prepared daily by the WKWM program meteorologists at Lakin, Kansas. The data was supplied via computer terminal'linked to an information bank maintained by the Environmental Data Network (EDN) of the Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of Interior. Data was also received from an alternate weather informati.on service" Weather Services, Inc. D~ily data acquisition normally consisted of collecting information produced by the following EDN programs: (1) RAWIN: From specific locations called Rawinsonde sites, this program retrieved upper air meteorological data such as temperature, dew point, windspeed and direction, and heights of the standard ',atmospheric levels (normally used by meteorologists). Twice daily around the world at 6:00 a.m. and at 6:00 p.m., Mountain Daylight Time, these sites each launch a radiosonde unit - a balloon carrying aloft a package of sensors and a radio transmitter that sends coded meteorological data back to its launch site. Fortunately, one such rawinsonde site is located within the WKWM target area, in Dodge City. Other such sites around the region that were helpful on ocqasion were: Amarillo, Texas and North Platte, Nebraska. (2) ANALYZER: Essentially, this program produced the same basic infor- mation as RAWIN (above), in addition to other very specific meteorol- ogical information. (3) HAIL: A surface temperature was calculated by this program which gave the expected temperature at which convective storms were to ' develop. Also calculated were the windspeed, direction and maximum gusts from the t h u nderstorms, and expected hail size. (4) UPRAIR: This plotted meteorological data is desired standard atmospheric levels for rawinsondes sites over large specified geo- grphical areas of the United States. On the WKWM program the "Plains"and, sometimes, the "west" geographical areas were usually plotted, printing out temperature, dew point, windspeed and direction, and the height of the standard atmospheric levels wanted. Then analyzed, important meteorological features were able to be pin- pointed and tracked thereby providing some of the most useful data pertinent to the forecasing function. ~: -11-