The Experimental Warning Program at the Hazardous Weather Testbed

The  Experimental Warning Program (EWP) at the Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) has been home to bringing researchers, private companies, emergency managers, social scientists,  National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters, and meteorologist broadcasters together to develop, evaluate and provide feedback on experimental products for the past 10 years.  Participants use AWIPS2 software to evaluate these products in both realtime and displaced realtime cases. Along with the experimental data, the full operational product suite is available and we can emulate any NWS office. Based on the evaluation and feedback, the HWT provides a vital component in the successful transition between research and operations.

This year on the EWP side of the HWT, four experiments were held with 24 NWS forecasters, seven meteorologist broadcasters, and a number of emergency managers. These experiments included: (1) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite -R series (GOES-R) convective and nowcasting applications consisting of Convective Initiation, Lightning Density, Lightning Jump, ProbSevere (2) the Probabilistic Hazards Information (PHI) prototype tool for tornado, lightning, and severe storm-based probabilistic guidance, (3) PHI tool in Hazard Services within AWIPS-2 focusing on tornado and severe storm storm-based probabilistic guidance, and (4) the Hydrometeorology Testbed Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor Hydro Experiment focusing on the evaluation and best practices of the FLASH products within the warning decision process.