Enhanced International Collaborations Supported by NOAA NWS: Ongoing Activities and Future Developments

Operational model developers and scientists at the National Weather Service (NWS)/National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/ Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) have been engaged in many successful international collaborations supported by various Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) and Implementation Arrangements (IA) between NOAA and its counterparts (public and private) in various countries.  Majority of these collaborations focus on a few key elements including capacity building,  technology transfer,  training, shared model development activities in a research to operations (R2O) framework, observations and forecast data sharing, and joint model evaluation activities.  This talk will illustrate a few such international collaborative activities that resulted in significant enhancements in the operational capabilities of our partnering countries that simultaneously helped further improvements in NOAA' forecast models through advanced R2O.  Highlights include the programs supported by NOAA's Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP), and MoU/IAs between NOAA and India Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), China Meteorological Agency (CMA), Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau (CWB) and Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).  These international collaborations are aligned with NOAA National Weather Service International Activities (NWS IA) office that coordinates and monitors bilateral agreements for cooperation in meteorology and hydrology between the United States and other countries.