This report serves two functions. First, it is the final report on NSF
grant ENV77-01103. This covers an 18- month period of research of July 1977 through December 1978. It should be noted that although this is a final report to serve the foundation's requirements for the grant, the research is about at the mid-point of an originally planned 3-year research effort. The National Science Foundation chose to fund 9nly the first phase of the effort, 18 months, without a change in the 3-year research plan. Hence, the research reported on herein is not at a completion stage, but rather represents partially completed efforts . The second function of this report is to present commentary about OSET (Operational Seeding Evaluation Techniques) from the project's advisory panel. An integral part of the project was a multi-disciplinary advisory group who was to meet with project scientists annually to review and comment on the project.
TI1e suggestions and comments of the 10-person group who met with us
first in September 1977 have been summarized (Schickedanz et al., 1978). This report is a similar summary for a second meeting in September 1978.
The first part of this report is an overview of the research. The next
sectio~ discusses the research centered on the statistical techniques, the
central focus of OSET. The second major section of this report addresses the meteorological research which has focused on covariates for use in operational project evaluation. A third section addresses the issue of developing operational criteria so that projects can be evaluated better.
The final major part of the report presents the results of the 1978 advisory
panel meeting. Panel responses to a set of major questions are listed along
with other commentary.National Science Foundation NSF ENV77-01103Ope
