Days-At-Sea (DAS) is the unit used to annually plan mission time aboard NOAA ships. Approximately 100 survey and research missions are planned and executed each year. A DAS is a day is which the ship is underway, under its own power, for greater than one hour, conducting mission operations, training, sea trials, or calibration. Also included are days in which hydrographic ships are not underway but are conducting operations aboard one or more ship-based launches.

A winter storm warning provides NOAA customers and partners advanced notice of a hazardous winter weather event that endangers life or property, or provides an impediment to commerce. Winter storm warnings are issued for winter weather phenomena like blizzards, ice storms, heavy sleet, and heavy snow. This performance indicator measures the advance warning lead time in hours of winter storm events.

Improving the accuracy and advance warnings of winter storms enables the public to take the necessary steps to prepare for disruptive winter weather conditions.

Metric calculated as the percent of Climate Prediction Center long range temperature and precipitation outlooks (monthly and seasonal outlooks) exceeding Heidke Skill Score (HSS) of 10 (10% better than a climatological forecast). Due to the scarcity of long-range outlooks (six per month), scores are smoothed over a three-year period. To better track results, three individual metrics are tracked – 1) All forecasts combined, 2) Temperature only, and 3) Precipitation only.

This KPI looks into the Patents service level on customers that indicated the patents employees they interacted with were helpful. This is in line with OMB A-11 Sec. 280 HISP requirements.

Key activities for fleet modernization and products are identified and tracked using a project management system. NOAA is currently using an IAA with the Navy for the first two General Purpose Oceanographic Ships under the Ship Recapitalization program. Key program milestones are used as the indicator for tracking acquisition progress. The next recapitalization ship is a Class B to conduct charting and surveys missions. This class will have its own key acquisition milestones.

A winter storm warning provides NOAA customers and partners advanced notice of a hazardous winter weather event that endangers life or property, or provides an impediment to commerce. Winter storm warnings are issued for winter weather phenomena like blizzards, ice storms, heavy sleet, and heavy snow. This performance indicator measures the accuracy of winter storm events.

Improving the accuracy and advance warnings of winter storms enables the public to take the necessary steps to prepare for disruptive winter weather conditions.

The public, private sectors, emergency managers, and government institutions at all levels in this country and abroad use NOAA tropical cyclone forecasts to make decisions regarding the protection of life and property. This measure represents the difference between the projected intensity of these storms and the actual intensity in knots (kt) for Atlantic Basin tropical cyclones (i.e., tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes).

* Annual Hurricane Season begins June 1 and ends November 30. The final values are produced after a verification and validation period.

The measure is validated by computing the average difference (error) for all the 48-hour forecasts occurring during a calendar year. Because tropical cyclones are relatively rare events, this measure can show significant annual volatility. Projecting the long-term trend, and basing out-year goals on that trend, is preferred over making large upward or downward changes to the targets each year.

Ensures that NOAA safely archives critical data and information according to National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) standards.

This KPI looks into the Patents service level on satisfaction from customers seeking assistance as a pro se applicant when filing a patent application. This is in line with OMB A-11 Sec. 280 HISP requirements.

The indicator shows the overall growth, in petaflops (PF), of the operational and research and development High Performance Computing capability. Our current enterprise supplies 16PF to support modeling requirements across NOAA. Growth in capacity will lessen the gap in current modeling requirement and provide additional capability to the modeling community within NOAA.