1FIREWX Integrating Vertical Wind Adjustment into Warn-on-Forecast System for Smoke (WoFS-smoke)

In recent decades, the western United States has experienced a significant increase in both the frequency and severity of wildfires, driven by climate change, human activity, and fire suppression strategies. These wildfires generate pollution that adversely affects air quality, with the capacity to travel hundreds of kilometers from the source and influence the environment from minutes to days. Addressing this issue, the Warn-on-Forecast System for Smoke (WoFS-Smoke) has emerged, offering short-term (0-6 hour) forecasts focused on smoke from emerging and rapidly growing wildfires. The system retrieves Fire Radiative Power (FRP) data from the GOES-East and West satellites, integrating it into the regional 3-km WoFS grid. The injection height of biomass burning emissions are then estimated at each grid point using the Freitas 1-D entrainment plume model (Freitas et al., 2007) that is also utilized by the operational HRRR-Smoke system. One limitation of this system was its failure to incorporate the estimated vertical velocity within the 1-D column back into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, hindering accurate predictions of vertical smoke aerosol transport and pyro-cumulus (pyro-Cu) formation. The latest iteration of WoFS-Smoke addresses this by incorporating the vertical velocity profile, as estimated by the Freitas plume model, back into the WoFS-Smoke model. This enhancement enables the system to provide a more accurate vertical structure of smoke and the potential to forecast the development of smoke-induced pyro-Cu. The improved model’s capabilities were demonstrated through its application to three wildfire events in California, New Mexico, and Texas occurring in 2020 and 2024. We will also assess limitations with this initial development and discuss the next steps at refining the fire – atmosphere coupling in the model.