(April 12, 2025) The NWS and NWSEO have agreed to a Grid Population Policy for all CONUS WFOs and a Reduced Service Operations plan to help with short staffing at WFOs across the CONUS and Alaska, along with an update to the Service Level Standards table, which will be available for all WFOs.
The grid population agreement applies to all CONUS WFOs. It specifies the use of ForecastBuilder and population strategy for National Blend of Models (NBM) in the Day 0-7 period as the initial starting point. WFOs will retain the ability to edit grids to ensure the accuracy of the local forecast. This agreement does not change the use of local tools to further develop grids such as for lake effect snow, marine, etc. The Regional Labor Councils (RLC) will retain the ability to negotiate population and collaboration times, WPC QPF in place of the NBM, and publish times, along with other regional grid priorities. Please refer to the grid population agreement for more details.
The second agreement is designed to be a stop-gap measure to help short-staffed offices. It provides a short-term mitigation strategy to manage ongoing personnel shortages resulting from deferred resignations, early retirements, departures of probationary employees, and potential RIFs. The first part of this agreement includes an updated Service Level Standards Table. The table defines options that can be consistently applied across WFOs to manage impacts due to staffing shortfalls. The second part of the agreement provides for the Reduced Service Operations (RSO), available to CONUS and Alaska region offices that have exhausted all appropriate measures listed in the Service Levels Standards Table, as vacancy rates for meteorologists continue to increase. The RSO plan reflects a mutually agreed-upon tiered approach between NWSEO and the NWS by which offices in close geographical proximity collectively leverage staff and resources to provide degraded/reduced services to their respective areas of responsibility. This plan is intended to be used as a temporary measure only. This plan will allow for offices that are part of a Tier 1 or Tier 2 grouping of offices to staff a minimum of six shifts per day for their pair/group. This does not necessarily mean that a WFO will go to one person on every shift (or 2 in a Tier 2 office). The staffing and schedule rotations will be worked out through the LOT process, and must be submitted for RLC approval. Each grouping of offices will need to have conversations involving all participating LOTs, which must occur to ensure transparency, clarity, and coordination in the planning and implementation of the RSO plan. For more details on the RSO plan please refer to the agreement.
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-NWSEO-