On May 1, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) shifted its tsunami decision support to a new simplified design that provides only the most pertinent information to the watch stander and decision makers.

The focused, high-impact, easy-to-interpret information is meant for U.S. decision-makers across departments. Anyone who has a stake in keeping coastal, low lying areas safe should be using this product to provide timely and relevant situational awareness.

"What we learned after the Jan. 23 Alaska earthquake was that our product was not adding value to our stakeholders," said JTWC Commanding Officer Cmdr. Jillene Bushnell. "At best, we were providing information faster than the other sources and providing them at all classification levels and communication circuits. This new tsunami warning format conveys a lot of information in a single page format, enabling JTWC to contribute to the situational awareness by quickly providing the needed information from the messages without the decision-maker having to discover the 'so what?' themselves."

JTWC previously retransmitted text-based tsunami information from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) for use by the U.S. Navy and its emergency managers and planners. JTWC sends information on any earthquake greater than 6.5 in magnitude and shallower than 100km, since those are the parameters with the potential to generate a tsunami. The previous process replicated the PTWC or NTWC messages by email, chat and text, and on its public-facing website for use by U.S. personnel.

Additionally, JTWC locally produced and published tsunami energy travel maps showing the forecast estimated time of arrival for tsunamis, predicted wave heights during its propagation, and a .kmz overlay forecasting ocean run-up heights in low lying areas. These products will continue to be posted on all of JTWC's websites, and will now be displayed in a simplified, single-page format under the new concepts of operations.

The previous methodology of information dissemination overwhelmed decision-makers who may have already signed up for PTWC, NTWC and/or the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) earthquake notification service.

Further details on available tsunami products can be found at http://www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/jtwc.html?tsunami.

JTWC provides tropical cyclone reconnaissance, forecast, safety warning and decision support services for operational advantage to U.S. government agencies operating in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and tsunami advisory information and recommendations to shore installations and units worldwide.

JTWC is jointly staffed by Navy and Air Force personnel and falls under the operational control of Commander, Task Force 80.7-Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. U.S. Air Force personnel are sourced to JTWC by the 17th Operational Weather Squadron, a subordinate squadron of the 557th Weather Wing.

For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.

For more news from Joint Typhoon Warning Center, visit www.navy.mil/.