As scientists work to predict how climate change may affect hurricanes, droughts, floods, blizzards and other severe weather, there’s one area that’s been overlooked: mild weather. But no more.
A new weather forecasting tool could soon find itself part of the day-to-day operations of NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS).
The instrument, called Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer, or AERI, measures temperature, water vapor and trace gases (like ozone, carbon monoxide and methane) in the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere, the troposphere. Now, an AERI project led by Tim Wagner, a scientist with NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has received funding through NOAA’s Joint Technology Transfer Program.
A study of tornadoes in the southeastern United States begins its second year this month as NOAA Research announces awards of $2.5 million in grants presented to partner institutions.
NOAA Research today announced $6 million in funding to get scientific and technological advances from the government and academia to NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) more rapidly, improving severe weather and water hazards forecasting.
Human-caused climate warming increased the chances of the torrential rains that unleashed devastating floods in south Louisiana in mid August by at least 40 percent, according to a team of NOAA and partner scientists with World Weather Attribution (WWA) who conducted a rapid assessment of the role of climate on the historic heavy rain event.
NOAA Hurricane Hunters are flying back-to-back missions to study the newly developed Tropical Storm Hermine in the Gulf of Mexico, capturing its evolution from a cluster of thunderstorms into a tropical storm. Getting data during such transitions can help improve hurricane models which currently don’t predict transitions well. Our understanding of the physical processes of early storm development remains limited, largely because there are few observations.
For the first time, NOAA’s National Weather Service National Hurricane Center used real-time weather data from the NASA Global Hawk unmanned aircraft to upgrade a tropical storm to a hurricane in the early morning hours Thursday. While the Hurricane Center recently downgraded Gaston back to a tropical storm, the recent forecast also notes it could intensify again on Saturday.
The NASA Global Hawk unmanned aircraft touched down Friday morning at NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast where NOAA and NASA scientists are preparing it for flights over Atlantic hurricanes.
While advances in meteorology fuel continual improvements to weather forecasts, there is growing awareness that a precise, timely forecast isn’t enough to prevent loss of lives and property. We must also deliver weather information to the public in ways that motivate people to take action to prevent loss of life and property.
We sat down recently with Kim Klockow, Ph.D., visiting scientist at NOAA Research’s Office of Weather and Air Quality, to learn about her work bringing together the study of meteorology and human behavior to help the public better use weather information to save lives and property.