Session 1B Special Session: The UFS-R2O Project: Advancing NOAA’s Unified Forecast System [UFS] as a Collaborative Community-Based Modeling System for Research and Operations I

Monday, 29 January 2024: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
323 (The Baltimore Convention Center)
Host: 14th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations
Cochairs:
Raffaele Montuoro, NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratories (ESRL), Global Systems Laboratory (GSL), Boulder, CO and Jessica Meixner, NOAA NWS NCEP EMC, College Park, MD

Funded jointly by NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Science and Technology Integration (OSTI) and the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Weather Program Office (WPO), the UFS-R2O Project has made significant progress since its inception in July 2020, coordinating a large community of researchers, both inside and outside NOAA, for integrating new research into the operational UFS applications.  
The UFS-R2O Project was conceived with a focus on leveraging the nascent UFS community to build new UFS applications that will replace several existing operational modeling systems and simplify the NCEP Production Suite (NPS). The project consists of three integrated teams covering the global Medium Range Weather/Subseasonal to Seasonal (MRW/S2S); the regional Short Range Weather/Convection Allowing Modeling (SRW/CAM); and the Hurricane applications, and are supported by seven cross-cutting development teams.
This Special Session on UFS-R2O Project is aimed at providing highlights and the outcomes of the UFS R2O Project thus far, with emphasis on accomplishments and future plans from the UFS Application Teams and Development Teams, community engagement and collaborative environment, and plans for the future. We also seek to make the collaboration even more productive and bring in new team members from the UFS community to contribute to the improvement of the nation’s operational prediction systems for the benefit of all of us.
Convener: Vijay S. Tallapragada, NOAA

Papers:
Introductory Remarks

8:30 AM
1B.1
Updates on Leveraging Community-Based Modeling for Operational Weather Prediction
Brian D. Gross, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC, COLLEGE PARK, MD

8:45 AM
1B.2
Unified Forecast System Research to Operations (UFS-R2O) Project Phase II: Accelerating the Transition of UFS Applications into Operations
Vijay S. Tallapragada, NOAA/NWS/Environmental Modeling Center, College Park, MD; and J. S. Whitaker and J. L. Kinter

9:00 AM
1B.3
Developing Fruitful Community Collaborations in Operational Model Development: Discussion and Guidelines in the Context of the UFS-R2O Project
Deepthi Achuthavarier, NWS/OSTI/Modeling Program Division & IBSS Corporation, Silver Spring, MD; and K. Garrett, Y. Jung, A. J. Poyer, Y. Xue, J. R. Carley, A. Chawla, A. Mehra, Z. Zhang, C. R. Alexander, C. Stan, X. Zhang, J. C. Carman, M. Huang, C. R. Kondragunta, H. L. Tolman, Dr. Ir., J. L. Kinter, V. S. Tallapragada, and J. Whitaker

Handout (1.4 MB)

9:30 AM
1B.5
Toward a Fully-Coupled Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFSv13)
Bing Fu, Environmental Modeling Center, NCEP/NWS, College Park, MD; and Y. Zhu, P. Pegion, H. Guan, B. Yang, E. Sinsky, X. Xue, J. Peng, F. Yang, A. Mehra, and V. S. Tallapragada

9:45 AM
1B.6
An Overview of the Operational Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System: Current Implementation and Forward
Xuejin Zhang, AOML, Miami, FL; and Z. Zhang, A. Mehra, S. Gopalakrishnan, V. S. Tallapragada, A. J. Poyer, and F. D. Marks Jr., ScD

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