The Marine Meteorology Division of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is currently developing an automated on-scene system to deliver high-resolution meteorological information to the fleet's operational forecasters, war fighters, and decision-makers. This system is an operational extension of existing and evolving research efforts in real-time data fusion and data assimilation. The state-of-the-art for the assessment of battlespace environmental conditions is advancing from an infrequent, single-station perspective to a 4-D awareness by continuous fusion of multi-source observations and on-scene short-term mesoscale model predictions. Meteorological information in the 0-2h ("nowcast") timeframe is critical to tactical decision-making within the battlegroup, and until now, observations and real-time mesoscale forecasts have not been effectively bridged for Naval interests. NOWCAST for the Next Generation Navy, together with he NRL Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS^TM) - On-Scene (COAMPS-OS^TM) at theater centers and shipboard, compose the on-scene, tactical-scale tier of NRL's telescoping strategy for mission success.

NOWCAST for the Next Generation Navy is an enterprise-class, network-centric data fusion system that will allow the forward-deployed battlegroup to automatically and continuously blend meteorological data from available sources to characterize the battlespace virtual natural environment. NOWCAST continuously transmits updated products directly to end-users and allows grouping and tailoring of the products to specific war-fighting and decision-making requirements, thus providing a capability for common environmental situational awareness.

Recent progress for NOWCAST will be presented, along with a live demonstration of the system.