This summer, NOAA scientists and partners are launching a number of new unmanned aircraft and water vehicles to collect weather information as part of a coordinated effort to improve hurricane forecasts.
Several of these research projects and other NOAA led efforts to improve hurricane forecasting were made possible, in part, because of the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013. The act was passed by Congress and signed by the President in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It provides $60 billion in funding to multiple agencies for disaster relief. NOAA received $309.7 million to provide technical assistance to those states with coastal and fishery impacts from Sandy, and to improve weather forecasting and weather research and predictive capability to help future preparation, response and recovery from similar events.
Rising temperatures will tend to reduce the amount of water in many of Colorado’s streams and rivers, melt mountain snowpack earlier in the spring, and increase the water needed by thirsty crops and cities, according to the new report, “Climate Change in Colorado: A Synthesis to Support Water Resources Management and Adaptation,” which updates and expands upon an initial report released in 2008.
More than 200 national and international lightning experts are gathering this week in Norman, Oklahoma, for what organizers have called “the most important international conference on atmospheric electricity in the world.” Held every four years, the 2014 International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity is co-hosted by NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory and the University of Oklahoma’s College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, and features the latest research on lightning and other electrical phenomena in the atmosphere.
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.