Unidata Users Committee Meeting Summary

2-3 October 2003
Boulder, Colorado

Meeting Agenda

Meeting Action Items/Resolutions

Members:

Jim Steenburgh, Univ of Utah, Chair

UPC Staff:

 

Rich Clark, Millersville Univ, Chair, outgoing member

Elen Cutrim, Western Michigan Univ Steve Chiswell

Bill Fingerhut, Lyndon State College, outgoing member

Ben Domenico

Charles Graves, St Louis Univ

Emily Doremire

Anton Kruger, Univ of Iowa

Steve Emmerson

Mark Laufersweiler, Univ of Oklahoma

Joanne Graham

Michael Morgan, Univ of Wisc-Madison Jo Hansen

Thomas Mote, Univ of Georgia

Ed Hartnett
Tony Rockwood, Metropolitan State

Yuan Ho

Donna Tucker, Univ of Kansas

Robb Kambic

Michael Voss, San Jose State Univ

Jeff McWhirter

Linda Miller

 

Don Murray

Ex-Officio Member:

Mohan Ramamurthy

 

Russ Rew

Tom Whittaker, Univ of Wis-Madison, Technical Rep

Jeff Weber

 

Stu Wier

 

Anne Wilson

 

Tom Yoksas
Scott Kehoe

Administrative:

New Actions Derived from Above Referenced Discussions:

Policy Committee Liaison Report - Tom Whittaker for Melanie Wetzel

Director's Report-Mohan Ramamurthy

Workshop Follow Up-Mark Laufersweiler, Michael Morgan

Action 4: Mark Laufersweiler, Michael Morgan, and Anton Krueger will develop a follow up survey to send to the workshop participants by October 31, 2003. All workshop information will be saved for future workshop planning, i.e., “message in a bottle.”

Action 5: A summer workshop meeting summary will be created, based on participants survey information gleaned from both the exit survey conducted during the workshop, the follow up survey (Action 4 above), and the workshop meeting summaries. A workshop summary report will be submitted to the AMS for publication by the end of November.

Unidata Status Reports-All

Reviewed with the following discussion points:

Action 6: The Users Committee will provide a letter of support commending the Unidata technical staff involved in development of the LDM6, based on its excellent performance for Internet data distribution for the Unidata community. This letter will be combined with other supporting materials to be submitted for nomination for the UCAR Technical Achievement awards.

Action 7: In future Equipment Award solicitations, a clear statement regarding the “needs-based” issue will be made, along with the focus of the RFP.

DeSouza Award-Jim Steenburgh, Rich Clark

Action 8: A solicitation for nominations for the Russell L. DeSouza Award for work performed within the Unidata community will be sent to the Unidata community as soon as possible. Nominations should be made by 1 November. The Users Committee will select the recipient via email correspondence.

NDFD-Tom Whittaker, Linda Miller

Action 9: The UPC will investigate the possibility of using the CONDUIT data stream for the NDFD data. Jim Steenburgh will solicit approval from the CONDUIT Planning Committee.

Community Outreach and Involvement-All

Action 10: The Users Committee members will poll the Unidata community with the goal of reconnecting to the Unidata community, and to measure the satisfaction of Unidata services and tools utilized within the community institutions. This task will become a Users Committee service performed each year via a short phone survey. The goal is to represent the Unidata “community,” and not the UPC.

Regional versus Focused Tri-Annual Workshops

The concept of Regional workshops has been raised several times over the years. The scene of the only Regional Unidata Workshop was SUNY-Brockport in 1993. Several people have indicated interest in having another such workshop. Many potential site representatives have stepped forward indicating they would be happy to host such an event. A Regional Workshop would be in addition to the tri-Annual Unidata Summer Workshop which is typically focused on a particular theme.

Action 11: A Regional Unidata Workshop will be held at Millersville University during Spring, 2004. Rich Clark will host and the Users Committee and UPC staff will help coordinate the workshop.

IDV - Don Murray

A short discussion and demonstration of the IDV was provided.

Users Committee Orientation-All

Action 12: The new Users Committee member orientation was successful, and in future orientations, an acronym list will be included. The acronym list will be added as a link in the <my.unidata> Web Portal.

Action 13: Research information on the NCEP Scientific Review Committee, and nominate a Users Committee representative to participate.

Action 14: Determine community interest by providing information via email and <my.unidata> Web Portal regarding ongoing floater service and transition to a Level II floater, if possible.

Steve Worley, NCAR/SCD, provided a discussion of the SCD Portal-Delay Model to IDD Data Products. This action was viewed as a positive step toward providing a great service for the Unidata community. Unidata will coordinate with Steve to provide a community email about the new delayed model access service.

Resolution 2:
The Unidata Users Committee thanks NCAR/SCD for providing delayed model access to IDD data products, which we believe will enhance education and research at member institutions. We encourage SCD to expand the product availability, including access to higher resolution analyses and forecast products provided by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and raw (i.e., undecoded) METAR reports.



Linda Miller,
External Liaison, Unidata
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
303-497-8646 fax: 303-497-8690