2. History  Founded by Chris Compton at the Paducah, Kentucky Weather Forecast Office in 2001.  Wanted to find ways to increase spotter participation, retention and reporting during severe weather.  Uses PHP and MySQL

3. History  Became a Central Region Web Services project in 2002.  Chris Compton (ITO PAH) and Randy Breeser (DAPM ARX) formed the eSpotter Task Team.  Goal was to offer eSpotter on a region-wide basis.

4. Participation  67 Weather Forecast Offices  Almost 24,000 Registered Spotters  And growing…

5. Overview  Web-based, browser operated  Forecast Office Interface (Internal)  Public Interface  Support Interface (Internal)

6. Overview  Special Emergency Manager privilege approved by local office.  Optional chat between office and emergency managers.  Ability to view incoming reports, and surrounding office reports.  Conference call notifications.

7. Benefits  Spotters get instant confirmation of report receipt. No “black hole” feeling, or doubt of receipt.  Reports are automatically acknowledged through the web interface.  Also reduces the chance for miscommunication of information.

8. Benefits  Strictly controlled interaction prevents burden on forecast staff during critical weather.  Public can only submit reports.  Offices can send messages to spotters for coordination and clarification.

9. Benefits  Greatly expanded capacity for receiving near real-time, categorized information, and at high volumes.  Phone lines are limited at offices.  Personnel to handle radios, chat, and phone calls is limited.

10. Benefits  Encourages regular training, and participation in spotting.  Trained spotters get access, data quality benefits.  Sense of belonging/ownership.  Controlled access discourages mischief, and eliminates anonymity.

11. No Barriers  Hundreds of spotters train every year, but a fraction participate. How many are thinking this:  “I wouldn’t want to tie up their phones reporting this.”  “They probably already know this.”  “It’s old information.”

12. Reports “Severe” Report  Basic report for testing concept.  Quick and easy.  Controlled information.  Flexibility for more detail in narrative.

13. Reports Winter  Same ideas from severe report.  A little more detail requested of the spotter.  No “required” criteria in any reports because we wanted to see how usage would grow.  “Severe” report allows for setting minimum size threshold. (i.e., Can hide 0.25” size per office.)

14. DEMO Submitting a Report

16. DEMO Additional Highlights

17. WFO & EM: Surrounding Area Reports

18. WFO: Weather Office Field Messaging

19. Spotter: Incoming Message Notification

20. WFO: Event Logs

21. The Future  Compliance with Security Standards  Sustainability and Support as Enterprise Service  Expansion and Increased Flexibility in Reporting  Updated Technology and Improved Performance

22. Questions?