What If? A Look into Potential Future Products and Services at SPC

What if…the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center issued continuous forecast probabilities for tornado, severe thunderstorm wind, and hail hazards in both space and time, from days to hours in advance of severe hazards? This would allow SPC forecasters to better convey the underlying meteorological risk and allow for downstream users to build applications to better highlight this risk to the public-at-large. This evolution is envisioned as the first operational step toward NOAA’s Forecasting A Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETS) vision. Such an evolution of SPC’s products and services such as this yields critical questions regarding how to communicate these new fields and to whom should they be communicated.

This presentation considers a series of “What if?” scenarios, such as the one just stated, regarding the future of SPC products and services. Each “What if?” scenario briefly highlights the perceived benefits along with the technical and communication challenges associated with each scenario. This presentation is unique in that rather than listing scientific results, a series of open research problems and opportunities facing the Storm Prediction Center are presented.