Transitioning Research to Operations at NCEP's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center

The Hydrometeorological Testbed at the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HMT-HPC) was established to accelerate the transfer of scientific and technological innovations into operations to enhance HPC's products and services. HMT-HPC works closely with forecasters, the research community, other NCEP centers, and NOAA testbeds to identify, test, and develop training on new forecasting techniques.

Over the past three years, HMT-HPC has significantly expanded its research to operations efforts through the establishment of the Quantitative Precipitation Forecasting (QPF) component of the Hazardous Weather Testbed's Spring Experiment, the HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment, and the HMT-HPC Atmospheric River Retrospective Forecasting Experiment. These experiments bring the operational forecasting, academic, and research communities together in a pseudo-operational environment to explore new forecasting techniques and evaluate emerging model guidance. In addition to these experiments, HMT-HPC recently led the establishment of HPC's MetWatch Desk, which issues event-driven short term Mesoscale Precipitation Discussions for areas of heavy rainfall that have the potential to result in flash flooding. Other areas of involvement include joint projects through the Collaborative Science, Technology, and Applied Research (CSTAR) Program and an exploration of object-oriented verification techniques. This presentation will highlight successful research to operations transitions from each of these projects.