Notice2022-21582
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Developing, Testing, and Evaluating Methods for Transitioning the Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT) to NWS Weather Forecasting Office Operations
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
October 5, 2022
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Full Text
<html>
<head>
<title>Federal Register, Volume 87 Issue 192 (Wednesday, October 5, 2022)</title>
</head>
<body><pre>
[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 192 (Wednesday, October 5, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 60378-60379]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2022-21582]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment
Request; Developing, Testing, and Evaluating Methods for Transitioning
the Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT) to NWS Weather Forecasting
Office Operations
The Department of Commerce will submit the following information
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the
Federal Register on 06/17/2022 (87 FR 36465) during a 60-day comment
period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public
comments.
Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Commerce.
Title: Developing, Testing, and Evaluating Methods for
Transitioning the Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT) to NWS
Weather Forecasting Office Operations.
OMB Control Number: 0648-XXXX.
Form Number(s): None.
[[Page 60379]]
Type of Request: Regular (New information collection).
Number of Respondents: 140.
Average Hours per Response: Vulnerability Mapping: 1 hour;
Background Interview: 1.5 hours (only being conducted with a sample of
EMs, ~100); Trust Survey: 0.25 hours (once at the start of the study
and one at the end of the study).
Total Annual Burden Hours: 120 hours.
Needs and Uses: This is a request for a new collection of
information.
The data collection is sponsored by DOC/NOAA/National Weather
Service (NWS)/Office of Science and Technology Integration (OSTI).
Currently, NOAA lacks data and data collection instruments that can
capture local, knowledge-based, weather hazard vulnerability
information from NWS WFO meteorologists and their CWA-based core
partners (especially, their county-based emergency managers (EMs).
Without this vulnerability information, WFO-level meteorologists'
situational awareness of the greatest concerns of and risks to local
communities often suffer. In addition, during situations where a WFO
must rely on a back-up office due to a WFO being affected by severe
weather conditions (e.g., having to shelter, losing power due to the
impacts of a hurricane, tornado outbreak, etc.), back-up WFOs rarely
have the situational awareness of the critical areas of concern to
local core partners and, thus, are less able to communicate mission
critical messaging to those core partners. Without this type of local
vulnerability information, NOAA, and the NWS specifically, is limited
in its ability to meet its mission of saving lives and property as
outlined in the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017
(especially Pub. L. 115-25 Sec. 405.d.1.A, 405.d.1.B, Sec 406.c.2.B).
This effort aims to advance the Tornado Warning Improvement and
Extension Program (TWIEP)'s goal to ``reduce the loss of life and
economic losses from tornadoes through the development and extension of
accurate, effective, and timely tornado forecasts, predictions, and
warnings, including the prediction of tornadoes beyond one hour in
advance (Pub. L. 115-25)''. This work addresses NOAA's 5-year Research
and Development Vision Areas (2020-2026) Section 1.4 (FACETs). This
effort also advances the NWS Strategic Plan (2019-2022)
``Transformative Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) and
Research to Operations and Operations to Research (R2O/O2R). The BVOT
would contribute to the NWS Weather Ready Nation (WRN) Roadmap (2013)
Sections 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.8, and 3.1.4. In addition, because
the BVOT is ``hazard agnostic''--it is used to collect vulnerabilities
based on different weather hazards and can be organized to display
those vulnerabilities only related to those specific hazards that are
relevant to an NWS WFO at any given moment--it can be seen to help
advance a number of hazard-specific congressional laws including (but,
not limited to) those related to tsunamis (Pub. L. 109-424 Sec. 5.b.4,
5.c.2, 5.c.3, Sec. 6; Public Law 115-25 Sec. 505.c.5.B and Sec.
505.d.1) and the recently introduced TORNADO Act (S.3817 Sec. 3.b.6.C).
This study will assess the feasibility of NWS WFOs working with
their local core partners to collect local known vulnerability points
associated with specific types of weather hazards in order to populate
a simple (but agile) GIS shapefile that can be used to provide WFO-
level meteorologists with situational awareness of the vulnerabilities
of greatest concern in their CWAs. This vulnerability awareness tool--
the Brief Vulnerability Overview Tool (BVOT)--has been designed by
researchers at the University of Oklahoma's Center for Applied Social
Research (CASR) and Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms
(CAPS), and it would permit NWS WFOs to work closely with their core
partners to collect initial vulnerability points and to update those
points in a efficient manner that would require little training and
little effort through the use of widely available, simple online data
collection methods.
Research participants will include adult (age 18+) NWS WFO
meteorologists and their core partners (primarily the county emergency
managers (EMs)) from four WFOs around the country. Participants will be
asked to participate in a number of background interviews. In addition,
they will be asked to complete an online (Qualtrics) survey assessing
the attachment, trust, and knowledge of WFO meteorologists and their
core partners. This survey will be conducted pre-/post- study in order
to identify changes over time. Participants will also be asked to
contribute to and learn how to maintain and use a Brief Vulnerability
Overview Tool (BVOT)--a GIS shapefile-based way of collecting and
displaying local, known vulnerability points within the existing
operational environment of NWS WFOs.
The creation of a BVOT provides a number of benefits over and above
current efforts within the NWS. These include (1) improved situational
awareness for NWS WFO meteorologists; (2) improved spatial awareness of
vulnerabilities of greatest concerns to core partners can prompt and
fine-tune messaging and DSS provided to these core partners; (3)
improved spatial situational awareness for backup offices if an NWS WFO
loses its capacity to operate; (4) improved training and orientation
for meteorologists who are new to an NWS WFO; (5) providing a
structured requirement for maintaining an evolving, ``living'' database
of vulnerabilities that can be shared and equally accessed across the
WFO and the NWS; and (6) providing opportunities to improve the trust,
communication, and rapport between an NWS WFO and its core partners
through the collaborative construction and periodic updating of the
BVOT.
Affected Public: State, Local, or Tribal government.
Frequency: Once or twice during the study.
Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
Legal Authority: 15 U.S.C. Ch. 111, Weather Research and
Forecasting Information.
This information collection request may be viewed at
<a href="http://www.reginfo.gov">www.reginfo.gov</a>. Follow the instructions to view the Department of
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of
this notice on the following website <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>.
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search
function and entering the title of the collection.
Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2022-21582 Filed 10-4-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-KE-P
</pre></body>
</html>Indexed from Federal Register on October 5, 2022.
This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.