What Might FACETs Look Like in Future Operations? Implications From the 2023 Hazardous Weather Testbed Watch-to-Warning Experiment

The 2023 Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Watch-to-Warning Experiment (W2W) was held in person over three weeks from August to September in Norman, OK. The focus of the experiment was to better understand how local weather forecast office (WFO) and Storm Prediction Center (SPC) forecasters communicate with each other and end users about the likelihood of severe weather between traditional watches and warnings. Each week, 3 WFO and 1-2 SPC forecasters participated in four simulated displaced-real-time cases, during which they issued and updated severe weather watches, mesoscale discussions, probabilistic hazard information (PHI) “plumes”, warning polygons, and public-facing graphics/messages. To carry out these activities, they used the National Severe Storms Laboratory’s prototype PHI Tool, the Warn-on-Forecast System (WoFS), new machine-learning-based hazard probabilities, and observations/model data. Following each simulated case, forecasters completed a survey and participated in a discussion about their experiences.

Early results suggest that forecasters found WFO-SPC communication valuable as it enabled pooling of expertise and consistent threat messaging across time and space. Forecasters naturally created products and graphics that spatiotemporally overlapped, from watch to mesoscale discussion to PHI plume to warning. Many products were probabilistic and thus would have provided end users with a continuous flow of updating probabilistic hazard information envisioned by the Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) initiative. While many forecasters were excited by the potential of this new paradigm, they also identified numerous challenges to operational implementation, including: lack of forecaster training, inadequate technology, lack of communication between offices, and the sheer magnitude of the paradigm shift. Implications for the future of FACETs will be discussed in the presentation.