Warn-on-Detection to Warn-on-Forecast by 2020?

A primary goal of the Warn-on-Forecast Program (WoFP) is to transform the current NWS warning paradigm from one that is deterministic and depends heavily on warn-on-detection methods, to one that is probabilistic and depends also on warn-on-forecast methods. Envisioned is a storm-scale NWP system whose output is post-processed using ideas from the Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threat (FACETS) program and enables NWS forecasters’ ability to increase lead time and accuracy for hazardous weather forecasts and warnings to reduce loss of life, injury, and damage to the economy. In 2009 the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) began the research program needed to investigate the potential to accomplish this goal. This presentation will summarize the accumulated scientific and technological progress by NSSL scientists and other collaborators and researchers toward this goal and lay out the research planned to achieve a user-tested baseline real-time WoF ensemble prediction system a reality by 2020.