Implications for Operational Nowcasting and Short-Range Forecasting from NOAA Moving to a Unified Forecast System

The Production Suite of operational models run at the National Weather Service (NWS) is generally considered as being too complex, with an modeling approach that is too fragmented. As part of a massive effort to unify and simplify the Production Suite, NOAA is moving to a Unified Forecast System (UFS) approach. The UFS is intended to be a coupled modeling (and Data Assimilation) framework connecting community component models. In the Production Suite, the UFS is used for a relatively small set of application focusing on different forecast horizons from analyses / nwcasts to seasonal. Moreover, the UFS is intended to be a community based modeling system used for operations, and not just another operational model that is made available to the public. The presentation will focus in implications of moving to a UFS for nowcasts and short term forecasts.