During the fire season of 1999, the National Weather Service (NWS) Office in Grand Junction, CO began using adapted output from the Colorado State University (CSU) Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) that provided specific guidance for fire weather forecasting. Researchers at CSU provided parameters specific to the fire weather forecasting problem (Haines index, mixing height, transport winds), and supplied time series plots of weather parameters for fire weather observing stations. This output gave detailed information to help forecasters predict the various fire weather parameters and their trends.
To evaluate the usefulness of this guidance, a verification study was initiated to compare the guidance from RAMS with the other numerical guidance available to the NWS offices. Also, field personnel provided feedback on the usefulness of this more detailed guidance. The results of this study are presented.
![](images/flag.png)
![](images/blue_ribbon.png)