We are a weather-weary and weather-worn nation, and the increase in billion-dollar disasters remains unabated. In the last 5 years alone, the United States has endured a total of 89 billion dollar weather and climate disasters. The U.S. government has responded with increased resources to better understand the weather and climate conditions that affect us…
Watch the video on NOAA’s Ocean Today > Transcript The most fascinating thing about hurricanes, to me, is how the atmosphere and ocean work together to form these massive storms that can cause such great destruction. What got me interested in hurricanes was 1999 Hurricane Floyd, powerful enough to actually knock a tree down, which…
In response to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and National Weather Service (NWS) bi-lateral meeting 2021, the WPO Forecasting A Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) Program funded a project to assess the current program and plan for a future iteration of the program. WPO hired Toffler Associates, an offsite contractor, to help…
This project implements an algorithm to estimate drift of the dropsondes in the data assimilation system of the operational Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model. With the help of JTTI funds this dropsonde drift algorithm was operational tested and implemented in the National Weather Service (NWS) operations. NWS is now able to assimilate more dropsonde observations…
On end user uncertainty, risk perception, and behavioral intentions (Grundstein FY18) Within the last decade, operational meteorologists have raised concerns that the availability of weather information from a variety of sources may contribute to a perception that weather risk messages are inconsistent and result in negative consequences among end users. The challenge, however, is that…
Title: Advancing ADCIRC U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coast Grids and Capabilities to Facilitate Coupling to the National Water Model in the Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System (ESTOFS) Operational Forecasting (Westerink FY18) The primary objective of this project is to improve predictions of water levels caused by extratropical tide and storm surge within the…
Forecasters at NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center (WPC) are responsible for producing Excessive Rainfall Outlooks, which brings awareness to the potential for flood-inducing rains up to three days in advance. However, the amount of rain that qualifies as “excessive” varies from region to region, and pinpointing the specific areas likely to receive heavy rain is challenging,…
Floods are among the most costly and deadly natural disasters that occur in the United States, coming in second to heat events. On average, approximately 100 people in the U.S. perish each year due to flooding. Reliable observations of flooding and inundation spanning larger extents are key in advancing the National Water Model (NWM) capability.…
As the climate continues to change and the frequency, severity, and impacts of wildfires increase, the importance of wildfire prediction and detection becomes even more critical. It then becomes essential to improve fire weather and smoke & air quality forecast accuracies in current operational models. This involves taking advantage of recent advancements in wind and…
The last several hurricane seasons have been active with records being set for the number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic basin. These record-breaking seasons underscore the importance of accurate hurricane forecasting. Imperative to increased forecasting skill for hurricanes is the development of the Hurricane Forecast Analysis System or HAFS. To accelerate improvements…