NOAA's 2023 Weather Program Office Innovations for Community Modeling Projects: Bringing Fresh Science to the Unified Forecast System

NOAA Research (OAR) launched the FY2023 Weather Program Office (WPO) Innovations for Community Modeling Competition to support groundbreaking projects that enhance scientific understanding and forecasting through innovation. The competition selected 12 projects from academia, government, and industry with a focus on advancing the Unified Forecast System (UFS) to become one of the world's most advanced, accurate and reliable operational modeling systems. Projects in WPO's Innovations for Community Modeling initiative integrates priorities from four WPO programs – Air Quality & FIre Weather (AQFW), Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC), Joint Technology Transfer Initiative (JTTI), and Subseasonal to Seasonal (S2S) – funding projects within three program areas: Numerical Weather Prediction Capabilities, Western States Hydrology, and Fire Weather Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Forecasting. We will present an overview of activities in the first year of the initiative, partial outcomes relevant to its higher-level priorities, and discuss how the initiative is contributing to a culture change in NOAA's approach to fostering community-driven scientific innovations.