Best Practices of the Research-To-Operations Process between NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory and the National Weather Service

The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), a research laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), serves the nation by working to improve the lead-time and accuracy of severe weather warnings and forecasts in order to save lives and reduce property damage. NSSL strives to complete its mission through a four-step process of: 1) making observations and conducting research to understand the causes of severe weather, and its detection and predictability; 2) developing advanced observing, forecasting, decision support, and warnings systems to assist the National Weather Service in its mission; 3) establishing, testing, and evaluating prototype demonstrations of new capabilities through use of the Hazardous Weather Testbed, prototyping, and other means by which researchers, developers, and forecasters work side-by-side to evaluate emerging R&D concepts and tools in simulated operational settings; and 4) implementation of advanced techniques into NWS operations through a collaborative approach. This approach ensures an efficient, effective, two-way path between research and operations, which ultimately improves NWS forecasts and warnings. The presentation will provide a short history of the many successful, award-winning NSSL Research-To-Transitions (RTO) projects with NWS units and some lessons learned during the RTO/OTR process over the years. In addition, a vision of future RTO activities in the areas of radar advancements, experimental forecast and warning generation techniques, and assessment of simulated satellite and other future remote sensing systems will be presented.