WPO funds work to advance our understanding of fire weather to improve forecasts of fire behavior and smoke for the public. The projects selected in this competition address the evolution of active fires and smoke, data assimilation of atmospheric and terrestrial conditions, new or improved physics parameterizations, and fire weather forecast system testing and verification. They will also enhance NOAA’s short-term wildfire forecasting capability by improving Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) representation of fire-atmospheric boundary layer interactions and incorporating two-way feedback between fire weather and smoke emissions.
The FY24 award total for the three selected projects equals $2.25 million. Projects will be funded for two years through January 2027. Award totals are distributed over the life of the projects using FY2024 appropriations.
Project Title | PI’s & Co-PI’s | Affiliations |
---|---|---|
Development and Evaluation of the Warn-on-Forecast System for Smoke (WoFS-Smoke) | Thomas A. Jones (PI), Patrick Skinner, Joshua Martin, Brian Matilla | University of Oklahoma |
Towards Improved Representations of Wildfire-ABL Interactions in the UFS Modeling Suite: Parameterization Development, Emissions Modeling, and Air Quality Impact Assessment | Khaled Ghannam (PI), Daniel Tong | Northeastern University, George Mason University |
Improving the Aerosol Representation and Coupling to Microphysics in the 3-km Storm-Scale Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) | Haiqin Li (PI) | Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)/University of Colorado Boulder (UCB), NOAA Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) |