Later this year, NOAA’s National Weather Service will usher into daily operations a sophisticated model called the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh, or HRRR, that will update forecasts hourly over the entire lower 48 United States at extremely sharp resolution using the latest observations from a network of ground and satellite-based sensors, radars and aircraft.
The HRRR provides forecast information at a resolution four times finer than what is currently used in hourly updated NOAA models. This improvement in resolution from 13 to three kilometers is like giving forecasters an aerial photograph in which each pixel represents a neighborhood instead of a city.
NOAA and the U.S. Navy are teaming up with academic and other government scientists to design the next generation of powerful supercomputer models to predict weather, ocean conditions and regional climate change.
Four teams of scientists are beginning projects this month to rewrite computer models that will create faster, lower-cost, better integrated models. These new models will take advantage of new supercomputers that use more energy efficient/lower-cost processors such as those originally developed for the video gaming industry.
NOAA Sea Grant this month announced $1.8 million in grant awards to Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey to enhance the American public’s ability to effectively plan, prepare and respond to natural disasters when they strike—particularly for major storms like Sandy, which resulted in 140 fatalities last year.
Independence Day is right around the corner, and Michigan's Lake St. Clair residents and tourists are gearing up for a holiday weekend filled with fishing, swimming and boating activities. Beach managers can now view NOAA water quality predictions in real-time, instead of waiting 24 hours as before, to make timely decisions to safeguard public health and avoid unnecessary beach closures.
Scientists have found that wispy cirrus clouds have cores of dust and metallic particles, answering questions about how these clouds form and giving insight into their climatic implications in the future.
As our planet is warming, not only have Earth’s climate zones begun to shift – the pace of change is expected to accelerate, according to a new study led by the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado.
NOAA and university researchers believe they have found a climate signal related to a specific phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation that could be linked to, and possibly serve as a predictor of, massive tornado outbreaks.