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e e e Emergency Management Questionnaire Results Regarding Weather Hazards. The NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) is conducting a questionnaire survey of Emer- gency Management (EM) officials as part of the development phase of the Local Data Acquisition and Dissemination (LDAD) project. The questionnaire assists FSL with understanding EM needs regarding weather-related events. The questionnaire explores several aspects of weather informa- tion within EM that can assist FSL with product development and training plans. The EM users are queried about weather-related events that are most/least important to their operations, events that are currently covered most/least effectively, their desires for weather-related information, and the current level of meteorological training. As of 25 June 1996 there have been 52 respondents (Fig. I). Tabulated results for three parts of the questionnaire are shown in Tables 1-3. The results were done for all respondents taken together as well as subgroups based on four specified weather hazards: tornadoes, hurricanes/tropical storms, blizzards/snowstorms, and fires. Some respondents belong to more than one subgroup, and others do not fall into any subgroups. Flooding is consistently a top priority in all climate regions of the U.S. Table I shows the average rating of all respondents in the second column. Wind events, tornadoes, and the weather's impact on chemical or nuclear dangers are all important across many areas. In localized areas, hurricane or tornado threats rank as slightly more important to EM activity than flooding. Table 2 shows that the National Weather Service is a primary source of information. Table 3 provides some indi- cation on how well that information meets the needs in EM. EM officials are generally quite sat- isfied with their current weather guidance on hurricanes, moderately satisfied with heavy precipitation/flood guidance, and rather dissatisfied with tornado and severe thunderstorm guid- ance (hail and lightning). This feedback is an important step for developing more effective weather support to EM agencies as the National Weather Service proceeds with its modernization. Matthew Kelsch" NOANFSL R/ElFSI 325 Broadway Boulder, CO 80303 kelsch@fsl.noaagov . "J , I Cl ......." ~ ~ Figure I: Distribution of 52 questionnaire respondents as of June 1996. "jointly affiliated with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Col- lins, CO.