North American Drought Monitor Workshop
Asheville, NC, USA
June 25-27, 2003

• converting U.S. Drought Monitor from CorelDraw to ArcGIS for importation into North America Drought Monitor
• inputting indicator maps, creating additional output products, training/tutorial issues, etc.

Evaluate, discuss status, and determine action items for:

• Is the NADM meeting or not meeting our goals and user needs
• Evaluation of drought monitoring tools we use
• Utility of other national indicators/monitoring tools
• Methods for obtaining additional users feeback.. i.e., ways to determine how useful this product is and how large the user community is
• Projecting a timeline for removing the experimental label
• The need for additional NADM authors
• Spanish and French versions of the NADM
• Production Schedule ... milestones/dates for receipt of data, processing of data, creation of the SPI and Palmer and PCTPCP (percent of average precipitation) maps, examination of additional monitoring tools from each country, creation of the NADM draft maps, review of the NADM draft maps with local expert feedback, creation of the final NADM map, putting everything online.

Evaluate, discuss status, and determine action items for:

• Station data for Alaska
• Greater station density for operational SPI in Canada
• Transitioning from climate division data to station data for the contiguous U.S.
• Clarification of wording on NADM map (time period covered)
• Do we want to expand the NADM data collection/processing/product creation system to incorporate the other extremes (things that will be discussed on Thursday and Friday), or do we want them to be a separate data base and processing system?

Discussion Topics:

1. GETTING STARTED
   1. Defining what we mean by extremes
      • Do we want to initially focus on the most readily recognizable forms of extremes? (e.g., cold snaps, heat waves, snow storms)
      • Or more subtle climate changes that affect maximum and minimum temperatures, days with rainfall and heavy rainfall events etc..?
      • Or longer duration extremes that can be detected in the pre-instrumental records?
   2. Defining the vision for monitoring extremes
      • What type of monitoring system do we want to provide in the coming years?
        • Will we focus on developing an interactive web site that provides outside users with tools for performing their own analyses?
        • Will we provide ongoing monthly assessments in web-based report form?
        • Will we produce annual assessments?
2. DATA
   1. Current Data
      • What data are currently available for monitoring extremes?
      • Who will collect the data?
      • Will all available data be sent to NCDC as a central collection and distribution point?
      • Are the data accessible in near-real-time?
      • Who will process the data?.. e.g., update the databases, calculate indices and provide near-real-time monitoring?
      • Will the data be collected at a central point in each country and then sent to a central collection point in one country for subsequent processing or will each country perform its own processing?
   2. Historical Data
      • Are historical records for these stations available?
      • Are the historical data free of inhomogeneities?
      • What adjustment techniques are available?
      • What type of retrospective analyses should be accomplished?
      • What needs to be done to improve databases for monitoring extremes?
3. ANALYSES
   1. What types of analyses should be accomplished first?
   2. Possible indices/indicators?
      • Total # of frost days
      • Intra-annual extreme temperature range
      • Growing season length
      • Heat Wave Duration Index (Max period > 5 consec days w/ Tmax > 5C above normal)
      • Percent of time Tmin > 90th percentile of daily min temp
      • # days with precip >= 10mm/day
      • Max # of consecutive dry days
      • Max 5 day precip total
      • Simple daily intensity index (annual total/# of rain days)
      • Fraction of annual total precip due to events > 1961-1990 95th percentile
      • Trends in heavy/extreme precip
      • # of dry days per season/year
      • # of wet days per season/year
      • Number of days with precip >/< thresholds
      • Runs of max/min temps /< thresholds
      • Number of days per season with max/min temp >/< thresholds
      • Others
        • Ice storms
        • Hail storms/thunderstorms
        • Snow storms.. monthly total snowfall amount, number of days with snowfall > thresholds
        • Dust storms, wind storms
   3. Use of Paleo data
      • What data are available?
      • What regions of the continent are best analyzed?
   4. Products to be created
      • maps of full fields and anomaly fields, regional time series, station time series, percent area experiencing extremes, trends, etc.
4. GENERAL DISCUSSION AND WRAP-UP
   • Review of Data and Analysis discussions
   • Development of milestones
   • Possible proposals to be developed
   • Discussion of review process group will implement before products are released
   • Providing products via the web and other avenues of distribution