Transition of the Basin-Scale Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model to Operations

The Basin-scale Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF-B) model was developed at NOAA/AOML’s Hurricane Research Division in collaboration with NOAA/NWS/NCEP's Environmental Modeling Center with support from the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP) to continue the improvement of tropical cyclone forecasts. HWRF-B was developed with two advanced capabilities that are not available in the operational HWRF: 1) a static outermost domain that spans the entire North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific hurricane basins; and 2) multiple sets of movable multi-level nests to simulate several tropical cyclones simultaneously at high resolution. The atmosphere-ocean coupling capabilities of the operational HWRF have been extended to the HWRF-B system, including an advanced version of the Princeton Ocean Model (MPIPOM-TC) initialized with Real Time Ocean Forecast System (RTOFS) data. In 2019, HWRF-B was successfully transitioned to the NCEP Central Operations supercomputer, where it ran as an HFIP real-time demonstration project. Real-time forecast guidance is compared for HWRF-B and the operational HWRF for the entire season and for selected case studies. A focal point is the performance of HWRF-B when multiple tropical cyclones are present within its outermost domain. Future plans for HWRF-B as a potential operational model are discussed.