The NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center: Future Operations Vision as Enabled by Next-Generation Ensemble Numerical Weather Prediction and Data Assimilation

The NOAA-NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is responsible for forecasts and warning messages to alert the United States public and weather enterprise to dangerous mesoscale weather phenomena including tornadoes, damaging thunderstorm winds and large hail, as well as conditions for the initiation and rapid growth of wildfires. The SPC has a long history of close engagement with the numerical modeling community through forecast experiments within the Hazardous Weather Testbed and through a variety of routine and research collaborations. SPC operational forecast services are all defined probabilistically, with robust product definition and verification supporting statistical reliability and event-to-event consistency. SPC has led operational information extraction from regional and convection allowing scale ensemble Numerical Weather Prediction, and is responsible for the development and sustained improvement of operational objective, calibrated probabilistic NWS guidance for tornadoes, damaging thunderstorm winds, large hail, and lightning as part of the NWS National Blend of Models effort.

This presentation will focus on SPC use of ensemble NWP and DA information to advance its specialized forecast mission, with particular emphasis on tornado forecasting. Ensemble NWP and associated DA information is at the core of the NOAA vision, detailed as Forecasting A Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs), to provide a foundational stream of probabilistic forecast information from to support society's routine and emergency decision support needs from days through hours and minutes in advance of key weather events. SPC exploits NWP to create objective probabilistic guidance, to support expert forecaster judgements, and to support real-time situational awareness for storms and near-storm mesoscale environments. NWP needs span the scales, from global ensemble forecasts, through High Resolution Ensemble Forecast and High Resolution Rapid Refresh systems, and prototype NWP and DA systems including Warn-on-Forecast (WoF) and the Three-Dimensional Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis System (3DRTMA).