(November 30, 2007) - National Weather Service Science and Operations Officer Charlie Paxton traded the wet beaches of Tampa Bay for the dry sands of Saudi Arabia earlier this month. Along with Program Analyst Jeffrey Stuart of the National Weather Service International Office and Dr. Richard Crouthamel of the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization, Paxton traveled to Jeddah to conduct Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model training for the staff at the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment.

Prior to the formal training sessions, the team met with Dr. Sameer Bukhari, deputy to the President for Meteorological Affairs and two meteorologists who visited the Tampa Bay forecast office in 2005 for instruction on Workstation Eta installation. They were impressed with the WRF model installed on the workstation and suggested an exchange visit to the Kingdom. Scheduled, postponed and re-scheduled several times since 2006, the trip finally came together.

Paxton began the classroom training with a general session that explained his background and office, the National Weather Service structure, the variety of forecasts and forecasting tools. He then began a session on Numerical Weather Prediction, followed by hands-on training. The bulk of the training focused on setting up the model and making operational runs.

As the Saudis experimented with different domain configurations, they gained a greater understanding of the tradeoffs between domains and resolutions. When the team departed, the model was left installed and running for the Saudi meteorologists to continue practicing domain and model configuration.

"They were quite eager to learn the system and each proved to be a quick study," said Paxton. "We came away with a very real sense of accomplishment."

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