US National Weather Services are national resources: thanks for deployments to Minnesota

If you have followed my posts on NWS Incident Meteorologists, over the last couple of years you have probably noticed that many of the deployments are in the western United States, see my most recent IMET post here and all of my IMET posts are found under this tag . I am here today to say and reinforce that NWS Incident Meteorologists are a national resource, IMETs are deployed anywhere in the United States as needed and may also be deployed overseas (see this post for more information on IMET deployments to Australia in January 2020.

Today I write as someone who lives in the area served by the Eastern Area Coordination Center where Minnesota is located. I have been following the Greenwood Fire  that continues to burn in the Superior National Forest. To date 25,991 acres have burned and it has yet to be contained. I was thrilled to read on an August 18 Facebook post by the US National Weather Service IMET Office that an IMET from the US National Weather Service in Bismarck North Dakota  exactly when this deployment ended.

On August 28th, an IMET from the US National Weather Service in Tampa Bay Florida was deployed to the Greenwood Fire. So at least for the last two weeks, there has been an IMET working on the Greenwood Fire providing onsite forecasts for the area burned by the Greenwood Fire. These site specific forecasts are important to provide the necessary fire weather forecasts that will help wildland firefighters be safe and to be appraised of upcoming weather conditions that will affect the fire. 

My inspiration for this article is a report with video from CBS3 in Duluth Minnesota, “Behind the scenes: On-scene Meteorologists watch the weather to in Northland to help fire crews". Thanks to the US National Weather Service IMET office on Facebook for pointing me to this video.

As a resident of a state that falls within the area served by the Eastern Area Coordination Center, I want to thank the IMETs for your service in the east. It means the world to me. I know that if the need should ever arise in New Jersey and adjoining States and we need an IMET that we will get one.