An Overview of NOAA’s Fire Weather, Climate, and Air Quality Forecast Services

Abstract

Among the many products and services NOAA provides include those oriented towards supporting prediction of fire danger and spread, climate prediction with a focus on drought, and air quality predictions with regard to ozone and smoke. The National Weather Service (NWS) Fire Weather program supports two main areas of concern, fire suppression and resource management, with NWS Fire Weather Planning Forecasts, NWS Fire Weather Watch and Red Flag Warning program, site specific spot forecasting, and onsite support services by specially trained incident meteorologists (IMETs). The NWS recently began the implementation of the national digital forecast database (NDFD) that features an interactive map. NWS Climate Services are leading the development of the management structure for the national integrated drought information system (NIDIS) Implementation Team to lead improved monitoring and prediction of drought. The NWS Climate Prediction Center took an active role in the implementation of the new climate forecast system (CFS), a coupled model which represents the interaction between the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have developed a national air quality forecasting capability to improve the basis for EPA’s air quality alerts and to provide a broad spectrum of air quality information, including with respect to smoke. NOAA’s products and services to support predictions for Fire Weather, Air Quality and Climate all share the common thread of evolving towards a higher degree of specificity and accessibility.