Abstract: To provide human forecasters with monitoring and verification tools to know when a machine-generated forecast may already be good enough for public use or to know when to intervene to improve a forecast. Performance support systems and methods that deliver real-time feedback of previous forecasts and forecast accuracy in order to optimize the human forecaster's effectiveness. The systems and methods allow human forecasters to receive feedback from an array of different comparison products, including verification information, forecast discussions and forecast tools, in order to learn from previous forecast performance during similar situations so that human forecasters can focus their energies and resources to those tasks that they can add value to or over machine-generated forecasts. As such, the systems and methods of the present invention allow human forecasters to improve machine-generated forecasts and provide improved operational results.

Abstract: A current synthetic UV index is developed and successfully verified against direct surface measurements of UV index values. The purpose of this invention is to distribute this current synthetic UV index through cell phones nationwide. This will inform cell phone users for the first time about the current UV index value when they carry their cell phones. The current UV index will be calculated using the geographical location of the cell phone, the time of the day, and the cloud cover conditions in that area. The algorithm will then use this information to calculate the solar elevation needed to determine the amount of UV radiation reaching the earth's surface at any given time. The total column ozone for that particular day will be taken into account for each calculation. This mechanism of dissemination of the actual/current UV index values will be an important achievement with the intention of raising the public's awareness of the harmful effects of the sun's ultraviolet rays.

Abstract: Methods and articles of manufacture for providing an indication or representation that describes the state of weather over a period in the past for a particular location. Observation data for the location is accumulated and stored over the period. Because forecast engines exist and can be adapted for use in determining the indication of weather, the observation data is converted into a format of forecast data. The data is then grouped into subsets and processed as forecast data. For each subset, a representation of weather is determined. The representations of weather for each subset are then processed to determine the representation of weather for the period of time.