Volunteers are a critical part of national marine sanctuaries and help support science, education, and conservation priorities. Volunteers assist in many projects, such as citizen science, monitoring, education support, and marine debris cleanups. Volunteer hours can also be assigned a value through the widely used nonprofit organization, Independent Sector, which provides a yearly estimate of what a volunteer hour is worth. Using this number, each year ONMS calculates how much in-kind support our volunteers provide.

This measure tracks success in translating research findings into useful tools, technologies and information services that improve the use and management of coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes ecosystems. This measure communicates the number of Sea Grant products (e.g., planning and mapping tools, sensors, observation tools, genetic markers, decision-support tools, or data-sharing websites) that address the management of land, water and living resources in coastal areas resulting from Sea Grant activities (whether research, extension, education or communications) and used by partners or customers. The data will be collected from the Sea Grant Network-wide database; only previously unreported tools, technologies and information services will be included in the annual number.

The Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) Ambassador program is NOAA's effort to formally recognize organizations that are improving the nation’s readiness, responsiveness, and overall resilience against extreme weather, water, and climate events. WRN Ambassadors serve a pivotal role in affecting societal change. In order to determine how many of our WRN Ambassadors are serving socially vulnerable populations and businesses, we'll use the top quartile for the CDC's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) of 0.75-1.0 overlaid with how many WRN Ambassadors are located in those areas. The target number in FY22 will serve as our current baseline and any increase in target number in FY23 will directly correlate to our planned increase in WRN Ambassadors (~500 organizations added).

The measure captures the number of events that have documented NWS use of the Warn-on-Forecast System (WoFS) experimental model runs demonstrated real-time tornado warnings and have provided actionable guidance issued at least one hour in advance of the event.

Precipitation forecasts and other foundational general weather guidance developed by the Weather Prediction Center are used extensively by the weather enterprise. This performance measure tracks the ability of the weather forecasters of NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center (WPC) to predict accurately the occurrence of one inch or more of precipitation (rain or the water equivalent of melted snow or ice pellets) twenty-four hours in advance across the contiguous U.S.

This information is used by government entities, economic sectors, and the general public to manage daily lives and activities and make resource decisions.

This measure captures a range of efforts by NOAA’s Aquaculture Program that together will lead to a more efficient federal permitting process. These efforts include: working with federal partners under the White House/OSTP's Subcommittee on Aquaculture to coordinate and streamline inter-agency permitting, working with industry partners to establish and manage offshore aquaculture pilot projects, conducting spatial analysis and developing siting tools, developing engineering solutions, efforts to assess and reduce risk (e.g., entanglement) from aquaculture operations, conducting programmatic environmental reviews to reduce burden on individual applicants, and drafting/revising guidance to permit applicants to improve application quality. We will also continue to support, as requested, any Congressional initiative to develop aquaculture legislation.

Tornado Warnings are issued to enable the public to get out of harm’s way and mitigate preventable loss. NWS forecasters issue approximately 2,900 Tornado Warnings per year, primarily between the Rockies and Appalachian Mountains. Tornado Warning statistics are based on a comparison of warnings issued and weather spotter observations of tornadoes and/or storm damage surveys from Weather Forecast Offices in the United States.

Accuracy or probability of detection (POD) is the percentage of time a tornado actually occurred in an area that was covered by a tornado warning. The difference between the accuracy percentage figure and 100% represents the percentage of events occurring without warning.

Most tornadoes cannot be visually tracked from beginning to end and post-storm damage surveying is the official method with which the NWS categorizes tornado characteristics (intensity, path length & width) but must rely on radar data to estimate the timing of the tornado track.

Ensures that NOAA provides real time (or near real time) availability of critical satellite data and products without gaps to users (NWS and other NOAA line offices, US military and operational partners). On time data and imagery provided increases timeliness and accuracy of public warnings and forecasts of climate and weather events.

This performance measure tracks the ability of forecasters at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction (SWPC) to accurately predict geomagnetic storms, which potentially disrupt power systems, spacecraft operations, and navigation systems. The NOAA geomagnetic storm scale (G-scale) ranges from the G1 or minor level where weak power grid fluctuations can occur to the G5 or extreme level.

During a G5 event, where aurora may be visible over most of the United States, the power grid can experience equipment damage causing system collapse or blackout; significant satellite damage can occur; and global positioning systems may be inaccurate or temporarily unavailable.

Geomagnetic Storm Forecast Accuracy is a percentage that reflects the amount of time that the SWPC geomagnetic storm forecast is correct over a 24-hour period. The 24 hour geomagnetic storm forecast is considered accurate if a G1 or greater storm event was correctly predicted. This calculation also includes geomagnetic storms which were not forecast. This measure is verified based on ground-based magnetometer observations. This measure is averaged over the 60 most recent geomagnetic storms to maintain statistical significance.

The NWS Partnership Strategy aims to improve the overall NWS partnership experience, enhance and develop new ways of leveraging and using partnership capabilities to help realize the NWS vision for a Weather-Ready Nation and understand the landscape of NWS partnerships and develop a clear strategic vision of which key partnerships we are looking to enhance or develop. To that end, the NWS will convene at least 3 national-level stakeholder/partner meetings to help meet the goals of the NWS Partnership strategy.