Revitalizing the Enhanced Short-Term Forecast in the National Weather Service (NWS) Central Region

In 2013 in the NWS Central Region (CR), the Enhanced Short-Term Forecast (ESTF) initiative was deployed to focus forecasters’ attention on the first 36 hours of the forecast. This initiative was multifaceted, including: ensuring all weather elements were hourly in time span, at least some portion of the first 12 hours was updated at least once every three hours, and delivering a team-supported suite of tools forecasters could utilize to make monitoring and updating the forecast easier. The tools have remain mostly unchanged over the past five years, and with significant model improvements since then, the ESTF initiative needed to be revisited.

In 2018, and as part of the CR Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) Roadmap, an effort has been undertaken to revitalize the ESTF efforts. The first component of the revitalization of ESTF, Digital Aviation Services (DAS), has already been implemented. Since TAFs are produced every six hours and contain forecasts out to 24 to 30 hours, proper DAS inherently requires forecasters keep the ESTF updated. Many more components to this revitalization of the ESTF are to come, including: engendering culture change to concentrate attention on the “critical period” defined as the first 6 hours, delivery of real-time comparative displays for the ESTF period in order to maintain situational awareness critical for Impact-Based Decision Support Services, a regional monitoring application, and more. This presentation will detail how ESTF has evolved in CR, the current challenges, and our future plans as part of the CR WRN Roadmap.