Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Home » observations

observations

A view of the Marshall Fire from south Boulder on December 30, 2021, as it swept toward the towns of Louisville and Superior. Credit: Patrick Cullis, NOAA

It’s not just hot air: Improved air quality model aids forecasters in the field

Wildfires are not only hazardous to anything in their path, they can also spew smoke that contains hazardous particulates more than five miles into the atmosphere. These smoke plumes can travel thousands of miles. An improved air quality model is helping state and local health departments respond to the public health impacts caused by these toxic plumes.

It’s not just hot air: Improved air quality model aids forecasters in the field Read More >

Sharon L. Walker

Finding the Fire Beneath the Waves by Leslie Irwin, OAR Communications Specialist Walker spends her time surveying and mapping the ocean floor and sampling the

Sharon L. Walker Read More >

Impact of Ground-based Remote Sensing Boundary Layer Observations on Short-term Probabilistic Forecasts of a Tornadic Supercell Event

AMS Weather and Forecasting journal
Due to lack of high spatial and temporal resolution boundary layer (BL) observations, the rapid changes in near storm environment are not well represented in current convective-scale numerical models. Better representation of the near storm environment in model initial conditions will likely further improve the forecasts of severe convective weather. This study investigates the impact of assimilating high temporal resolution BL retrievals from two ground-based remote sensing instruments for short-term forecasts of a tornadic supercell event on 13 July 2015 during the Plains Elevated Convection at Night field campaign. Results indicate a positive impact of Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) and Doppler Lidar observations in forecasting Convective Initiation (CI) and early evolution of the supercell storm. The experiment that employed the AI technique to assimilate BL observations in DA enhances the humidity in near storm environment and low-level convergence, which in turn helps forecasting CI. The forecast improvement is most pronounced during the first ~3-h. Results also indicate that the AERI observations have a larger impact compared to DL in predicting CI.

Impact of Ground-based Remote Sensing Boundary Layer Observations on Short-term Probabilistic Forecasts of a Tornadic Supercell Event Read More >

Scroll to Top

Popup Call to Action

A prompt with more information on your call to action.