Research Tools: Warning

Warn-on-Forecast

The Warn-on-Forecast (WoF) research project will deliver a set of enabling technologies for FACETs on a variety of space and time scales. WoF aims to create computer-model projections that accurately predict storm-scale phenomena such as tornadoes, large hail, and extremely localized rainfall. If Warn-on-Forecast is successful, forecasters will be provided with reliable guidance for issuing tornado, severe thunderstorm, and flash flood warnings up to an hour before they strike.

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Warn-on-Forecast is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research program tasked to increase tornado, severe thunderstorm, and flash flood warning lead times. Watch on YouTube

FACETs

Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) serves as a broad-based framework and strategy to help focus and direct efforts related to next-generation science, technology and tools for forecasting environmental hazards. FACETs will address grid-based probabilistic threats, storm-scale observations and guidance, the forecaster, threat grid tools, useful output, effective response, and verification.

Threats in Motion

One of the new warning methodologies being tested in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed is the “Threats-In-Motion” (TiM) concept. TiM warning grids update every minute and move continuously with the path of the storm. TiM has the advantage of providing useful lead times for all locations downstream of the hazards, and continually removes the warning from areas where the threat has already passed.

Hazardous Weather Testbed

NOAA's Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) is jointly managed by NSSL, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) and the National Weather Service Oklahoma City/Norman Weather Forecast Office (OUN) on the University of Oklahoma campus inside the National Weather Center. The HWT is designed to accelerate the transition of promising new meteorological insights and technologies into advances in forecasting and warning for hazardous mesoscale weather events throughout the United States.

FLASH

The Flooded Locations And Simulated Hydrographs Project (FLASH) was launched in early 2012 to improve the accuracy and timing of flash flood warnings. FLASH uses forecast models, geographic information, and real-time high-resolution, accurate rainfall observations from the MRMS project to produce flash flood forecasts at 1-km/5-min resolution. FLASH project development continues to be an active collaboration between members of NSSL's Stormscale Hydrometeorology and Hydromodeling Groups, and the HyDROS Lab at the University of Oklahoma.

  • NSSL Fact Sheets: FLASH (.pdf, 1.6 MB)

MYRORSS

The Multi-Year Reanalysis Of Remotely-Sensed Storms (MYRORSS – pronounced “mirrors”) NSSL and the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) to reconstruct and evaluate numerical model output and radar products derived from 15 years of WSR-88D data over the coterminous U.S. (CONUS). The end result of this research will be a rich dataset with a diverse range of applications, including severe weather diagnosis and climatological information.