Standardizing NWS Color Tables — A Grassroots Effort
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Darren Van Cleave, NOAA/NWS/WFO
Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, UT
Joe Moore, NOAA/NWS/WFO
Duluth
Derek Deroche, NOAA/NWS/Central
Region
Abstract:
The National Weather Service
(NWS) communicates a large amount of information in both text and visual
formats. Over the past several years, the NWS has made a concerted effort to
improve consistency among its products and services. NWS forecasters regularly
create graphics to support a wide range of decision support services and
forecast operations, with many including corresponding maps of NWS forecasts.
Several internal software packages have been created at the field and regional
levels to help forecasters quickly generate such maps. In 2015, a grassroots
group was established to address the issue of consistency among these various
graphics-generation platforms, with a primary focus on color tables. This group
has made a priority of incorporating established color science and cartography
best practices in order to produce maps that are understandable to the general
public. Meanwhile, the group has also strove to produce color tables that
remain comprehensible to individuals with common forms of color blindness,
while also being flexible enough to represent the wide range of weather
conditions possible across the United States.
This poster will highlight
the work accomplished to date by the standard colors group with a variety of
real-world examples. Preliminary feedback will also be discussed. Lastly,
future plans as well as possible expansion into other NWS products and services
will be addressed.