Press Release 1994-3
For Release: January 1994

Contact:  Joan Vandiver Frisch
Manager, NCAR Media Relations
(303)497-8607
 Email: jfrisch@ncar.ucar.edu

COMET to Soar in '94

BOULDER--Almost as spectacular as the kind in the sky, COMET (the 
Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training) 
could easily dazzle a few beholders during the coming year with a 
constellation of activities developed to train weather forecasters on the 
science in their jobs and the latest in weather technology.  The training 
program, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, is proceeding hand in hand 
with a vast modernization of the National Weather Service (NWS), while 
opening the door to an expanded global classroom on meteorology and 
weather prediction.

A program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), 
COMET is funded by the National Weather Service, the Air Weather Service, 
and the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.  The National 
Science Foundation provides primary support for UCAR, a consortium of 61 
universities offering Ph.D.s in the atmospheric and related sciences. 

Although COMET's current focus is on the home front, the mission extends 
beyond national borders.  Director Timothy Spangler is currently working 
with Canada's Atmospheric Environment Service to help solve forecasting 
problems characteristic of the higher latitudes.  Australia, with its own set of 
Southern Hemisphere conditions, may soon enroll a crew of forecasters for a 
year of training in the development of computer-based learning.  Self-paced, 
multimedia training modules designed for U.S. forecasters are proving useful 
in countries like Kenya and Barbados, both regional centers of the World 
Meteorological Organization.  Since nations from all over Africa send their 
forecasters to the center in Nairobi, providing modules there allows the 
entire continent to benefit from the latest research and technology.

In addition to distributing the instructional modules, COMET has developed 
other strategies to meet retraining needs on the home front: (1) classes 
providing new skills and concepts for weather forecasters, hydrologists, and 
other atmospheric scientists; (2) collaborations between universities and the 
NWS to understand local weather phenomena; and (3) workshops for 
university instructors on how to design up-to-date courses in mesoscale 
meteorology.  

During 1994, the Residence Program will provide 34 weeks of classes.  Taught 
by both academic and operational meteorologists and based on a library of case 
studies, the classes are held in the COMET classroom in Boulder.  Meanwhile, 
the Distance Learning Program will be training 8,000 forecasters in the NWS, 
the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Navy through the interactive, computer-
based learning modules.  The modules incorporate computer text, spoken 
dialogue, and graphics in each lesson, along with accompanying videos to 
demonstrate laboratory experiments.  This year COMET's Outreach Program 
will channel over $400,000 into nearly 20 universities to collaborate with 
NWS offices on regional forecast problems.  Starting May 30, COMET will 
offer a two-week session for university faculty in designing an upper-level 
course in mesoscale meteorology.  Following this session will be a 
complementary one-week workshop, sponsored by the National Science 
Foundation and UCAR's Unidata, on "Teaching Mesoscale Meteorology in 
the Age of the Modernized Weather Service."

For more information on COMET, please contact the following:
Timothy Spangler, COMET director, 303-497-8473
Ronald Alberty, Residence Program, 303-497-8478
Brian Heckman, Distance Learning Program, 303-497-8498
Victoria Johnson, Outreach Program, 303-497-8361

Writer:  Anatta, NCAR Media Relations