New Tools to Aid Severe Weather Forecasting
NOAA said May 15 that more than 60 researchers and forecasters from government agencies, academia, and the private sector will visit the National Weather Center on the University of Oklahoma's Norman, Okla., campus, this spring to work on better forecasting of severe weather.
The agency says this Spring Experiment, hosted by the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed, "offers an irresistible opportunity for research scientists and operational forecasters to change roles for a week during the active spring severe weather season that affects large parts of the nation." This is the seventh year for the experiment but the first year for the Hazardous Weather Testbed facility in the recently built National Weather Center, which is between the operational forecast areas of the NOAA Storm Prediction Center and the NOAA National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office. These two offices, along with the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, are leading the Spring Experiment activities planned through June.
Experimental Forecast Program participants will use high-resolution computer prediction models to prepare experimental forecasts of severe weather. Experimental Warning Program participants will focus on shorter-term convective weather and test new hazardous weather services, products, and applications in a real-time operational setting, according to NOAA.