Review 2015-16 Severe and Fire Weather Events & Updates to SPC Forecast Products

An overview of significant tornado and fire weather events during 2015 and early 2016 will be presented through the use of synoptic and mesoscale datasets. Forecasts for these events generated at the NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) will be reviewed by assessing the most valuable aspects of available model and forecaster-generated guidance. Some of the more significant events will be placed into historical perspective using severe storm and fire report data that is archived by SPC. Recent changes to SPC's severe and fire weather outlooks will also be discussed. Recent severe weather outlook changes include the addition of two new descriptive categories as well as a summary section to the written product. Fire outlooks have introduced a more probabilistic approach that will be explained. Plans for future SPC services will be presented, including Short-Term Tornado Outlooks and an afternoon update to the Day 3 Convective Outlook.