The Atlantic Coast Observer Network - Virginia/North Carolina/South Carolina

Ground Broken for new NOAA Center for Weather & Climate Prediction

COLLEGE PARK, MD - The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has broken ground for the new Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. Opus East, L.L.C., of Rockville, Maryland, will design, construct and own the building and lease it to the GSA. Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc. is the lead designer and interior architect. Opus arranged a long- term ground lease with the University of Maryland for the development. The 268,762 square-foot office and research complex will become the new home for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service (aka NESDIS), Air Resources Laboratory, and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Some 800 people will work in the facility.

Virtually all the meteorological data collected globally will arrive at NOAA's Center for Weather and Climate Prediction. Scientists will generate a wide variety of atmospheric and oceanic forecasts and products using numerical weather and climate prediction models. "Our vision is clear: To create a new state-of-the-art facility for NOAA employees that enhances our ability to understand and meet global atmospheric challenges of today. Our goal is to accelerate new science and technology into operations, improve forecast performance, and better serve the American public," said Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., NOAA Administrator.

This structure has been designed to provide a state-of-the-art facility that reflects NOAA's mission "to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources, to meet our nation's economic, social and environmental needs." It includes its "green roof" and rainwater waterfall, and both the site and building will achieve the U.S. Green Building Council LEED Silver Certification. An employee-friendly building that brings the natural settings into everyone's office will be equally inviting to visitors. The facility will be completed in late fall 2007, with full occupancy in February 2008

Use the back key in your browser to return to the previous page.

Fickle Storm Tests TV's Divining Skill

By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 13, 2006; B01

When WTTG-TV Fox 5 weather forecaster Sue Palka woke up in her Gaithersburg home yesterday morning, she was alarmed by the quiet. There is always a stillness after a big snow, but this was too still. To her ears it "sounded" like more snow than she had forecast.

She asked her husband to go outside and measure, hoping he'd come back with the four to six inches she had predicted Alas, he reported, the snow was 14 inches deep. Palka got up and called her station to see whether there had been complaints from viewers.

At Channel 9, WUSA-TV weekend meteorologist Tony Pann also was braced for trouble. He had forecast accumulations of six to eight inches across the Washington area and was stunned to hear that Columbia and Towson, Md., got more than 20. "Obviously, it was a really bad forecast for the northern suburbs," he said. "About as bad as you can get"

For the region's television weather forecasters, the weekend's snowy nor'easter was a tricky system that crept in, looked like it might be tame and then exploded in ferocity early yesterday after most of them had gone home for the night.

Although most places in the area got some variation of the expected six to 10 inches of snow, a few got twice as much -- something that no one, apparently, had foreseen.

"I don't know anybody who would have had the guts to go 21 inches," Palka said.

Added Doug Hill, chief meteorologist at WJLA-TV's Channel 7: "I would have never guessed that in a million years."

The storm again underscored the capriciousness of local winter weather and the public anguish when a forecaster gets it wrong.

"It's very disappointing when you miss a forecast," Pann said. "The bad forecasts are what stick in people's minds. One bad forecast is going to wipe out 10 great ones."

The forecasters' weekend antagonist was a huge swath of precipitation that crawled across the South on Friday and out into the winter-storm-brewing grounds of the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.

There, early yesterday, according to the National Weather Service, the storm "bombed out" -- dramatically intensified -- and began sending powerful "mesoscale" bands of heavy snow, along with thunder and lightning, racing down from the Northeast.

James E. Lee, the meteorologist in charge of the weather service office in Sterling, said one or more of those bands reached into an area north of the District and west of Baltimore, dumping more than 20 inches of snow in parts of Howard and Baltimore counties.

Forecasters call it "thunder snow" and say it can produce snowfall rates of three or four inches an hour. "Betwee! n midnight and 5 a.m. a foot of snow fell . . . in that part of Maryland," Pann said. "I have never, ever seen that in my life."

"Thunderstorms in the wintertime, it's impossible to forecast that," he said. "I don't care who you are."

The forecasting derby began in earnest Friday.

As early as 11 p.m., Hill was calling for accumulations of six to 10 inches across the District and in its near suburbs. Bob Ryan, chief meteorologist for WRC-TV (Channel 4) was more daring, calling for six to 12 inches and saying that this would be the biggest storm in three years.

But Saturday morning dawned dry, then gave way in many areas to rain.

At 5 a.m. the National Weather Service boldly posted a forecast for up to 14 inches of snow.

At 7 a.m. Pann and Channel 9's chief meteorologist, Topper Shutt, forecast a conservative four to eight inches but warned of heavy snow later and the possibility of thunder and lightning.

By midday, although there still had been scarcely a flake, Hill was on WTOP radio, sticking with his six-to-10-inch prediction but asking rhetorically, "Could there be less snow?" He would do his best to figure it out, he told listeners, and "audibilize" if needed.

By 2 p.m., under glowering skies, the rain in the District began to mix with snow; by 3 p.m. it switched to light snow.

At 6 p.m., Ryan, saying he was relieved that it was finally snowing, announced that he was "turning down" his accumulations.

The ocean water was warmer, he said, and the storm seemed to be moving faster. "It's going to be a shorter period than I thought," he said. He predicted four to eight inches west of town and three to six in the general area.

At 7:30 p.m., Pann also was thinking lower numbers. "I don't think you're going to call this the blizzard of 2006 or anything," he told viewers. Accumulations would be around six to eight inches!

Yesterday he explained that he and Shutt agonized over the figures, with Pann wanting to go with lower numbers and Shutt pushing for higher numbers. We were "sweating it out," Pann said, debating: "Should we pull it back a few inches? Should we extend it a few inches?"

At 10 p.m., on Fox 5, with moderate snow falling, Palka warned, "This is just getting going."

But the temperatures were still right around freezing, and she worried that the storm would intensify after it left the area. "We were really fretting," she said. "All we did all night was fret."

Her colleague Gary McGrady predicted that accumulations would range from four to six inches. "It does look like we're going to miss the one foot-plus," he told viewers, though "we never thought we were going to get that anyway."

Pann said as late as midnight Saturday that he thought the storm was on its way out. "I thought the storm was pulling away," he said. "It didn't loo! k like there was much left."

For most of the region, he was correct.

"Sixty percent of the area, 70 percent, thinks we were right on the money," he said yesterday. "The other 30 or 40 percent think that we're lunatics."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Use the back key in your browser to return to the previous page.