NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center—New Developments in Space Weather Forecasting and Modeling

The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), one of the nine National Weather Service (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), is the nation's official source for space weather alerts and warnings. The SWPC monitors, measures, and specifies the space environment and provides timely and accurate operational space weather services to end users in the USA and around the world.

The rapid advances in the technology sector and our fast growing dependency on space-based systems have resulted in an ever-increasing vulnerability to hazardous space weather. NWS/NCEP are addressing these rapid changes in our space weather customer base by understanding and responding to the evolving needs and requirements of a global high-tech economy. The rapidly growing customer base requires improved forecasting skills to support the diverse user areas, including national security, aviation, emergency response, communications, global positioning system (GPS) applications, spacecraft operations, space exploration, and electric power grids.

This presentation will focus on recent advances in NCEP SWPC prediction services related to operational space weather forecasting, research and modeling. The future of space weather forecasting depends largely on the development and use of numerical prediction. The development and application of a new space weather prediction testbed will be discussed as NCEP prepares for transition of the first physics-based space weather model for use in operations.