After a year and a half of concerted effort between NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC), Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), and other NOAA offices, including the Weather Program Office, the Hurricane and Ocean Testbed (HOT) has been successfully re-named (from the Joint Hurricane Testbed) and re-launched in the newly designed William M. Lapenta Laboratory, named in…
In partnership with NOAA, Saildrone Inc. is deploying seven ocean drones to collect data from hurricanes during the 2022 hurricane season with the goal of improving hurricane forecasting. For the first year, two saildrones will track hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the biggest challenges to hurricane forecasting is predicting rapid intensification, when hurricane…
A presentation given at NOAA’s 46th Annual Climate Diagnostics and Prediction Workshop used cluster analysis methods to investigate and forecast circulation regimes impact on weeks 3/4 predictions. This study demonstrates that the dominant circulation regimes over North America are combinations of teleconnections where the clusters are related to temperature and precipitation anomalies. The computationally efficient…
A recent study uses novel diagnostics to evaluate the ability of 11 state-of-the-art Subseasonal to Seasonal (S2S) forecast systems to represent the teleconnections of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and the impact on mid-latitude weather systems and prediction. Several S2S program funded projects contributed to this work. While highlighting where model developments may be most beneficial…
The lack of continued support for projects that are near completion creates a backlog of usable resources that cannot be fully incorporated into operations. The NWS Office of Science and Technology indicated that this backlog impedes the growth and progress of NWS operations which reduces the benefit of forecast improvements for the public. WPO chose to work towards resolving this issue by holding a NOAA internal funding competition.
The Observations Program at the Weather Program Office has partnered with WindBorne Systems, Inc. to fund the development of an advanced weather balloon. This technology offers a low cost platform enabling collection of surface to stratosphere weather data in lesser-sampled regions.
WPO works in coordination with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma to award projects that explore and refine novel predictors of tornadoes, and to improve the communication of tornado forecasts and risk to tornadoes in the U.S. This year competition award total* for the 4 selected projects equals $1.36 M in grants.…
Testbeds are unique collaborative spaces that allow researchers and forecasters to work together to improve weather prediction systems. They accomplish this by working alongside each other to integrate new observing systems into models, test and streamline data assimilation methods, test weather model improvements, and strategize new developments. The Weather Program Office funds research projects and…
The Joint Technology Transfer Initiative (JTTI), works closely with the National Weather Service to accelerate the transition of matured weather research to NWS operations to improve forecasting for the benefit of the American public. This year’s competition focused on improving model development in collaboration with the UFS community to improve forecasts, finding innovative methodologies to…
The Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 calls for NOAA to improve its Subseasonal to Seasonal (S2S) capabilities, and defines subseasonal to seasonal as the range between two weeks and two years. Additionally, the FY22 Appropriation mandated an increased emphasis on improvements to hydrologic prediction for the Western states. To meet these needs,…