The focus of NOAA's THORPEX program is improving the skill and utility of forecasts over the 3-14 day lead-time range. No hard barrier, however, exists at day 14. Users require a forecast product suite that is seamless across different time ranges; and scientifically, predicting weather at shorter, or various statistics of weather at longer time ranges is based on the same laws of physics.

Recently, NOAA held a planning workshop where scientists from the community reviewed current activities and future plans related to intra-seasonal forecasting. This presentation will report on the open science questions that if solved the invited experts found most promising for bringing major advances in the area of intra-seasonal forecasting. The recommendations included research related to the observing system, data assimilation, numerical modeling, ensemble forecasting, as well as socio-economic applications for the 10-60 day forecast lead time range.