Community Support and Transition of Research to Operations for the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model

L Bernardet,T Marchok,R Yablonsky,S Trahan,M Tong,S Bao,D Stark,B Kuo,Q Liu,E Uhlhorn,S Gopalakrishnan,Y Kwon,L Carson,M Biswas,T Brown,R Gall,V Tallapragada,X Zhang

doi:10.1175/bams-d-13-00093.1

Abstract

Abstract The Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model (HWRF) is an operational model used to provide numerical guidance in support of tropical cyclone forecasting at the National Hurricane Center. HWRF is a complex multicomponent system, consisting of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) atmospheric model coupled to the Princeton Ocean Model for Tropical Cyclones (POM-TC), a sophisticated initialization package including a data assimilation system and a set of postprocessing and vortex tracking tools. HWRF’s development is centralized at the Environmental Modeling Center of NOAA’s National Weather Service, but it incorporates contributions from a variety of scientists spread out over several governmental laboratories and academic institutions. This distributed development scenario poses significant challenges: a large number of scientists need to learn how to use the model, operational and research codes need to stay synchronized to avoid divergence, and promising new capabilities need to be tested for operational consideration. This article describes how the Developmental Testbed Center has engaged in the HWRF developmental cycle in the last three years and the services it provides to the community in using and developing HWRF.

Highlights

Community Support and Transition of Research to Operations for the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model
This effort paralleled the establishment of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP) in 2008 (Gall et al 2013)—an initiative geared toward funding tropical cyclone research for accelerating the improvement of operational numerical model guidance to National Hurricane Center (NHC)
Given the limited resources in the National Weather Service (NWS) for model development, there is a recognized need for harnessing the research conducted in NOAA laboratories and academic institutions

Summary

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L., Tallapragada, V., Bao, S., Trahan, S., Kwon, Y., Liu, Q., Tong, M.,...Gall, R. (2015). L., Tallapragada, V., Bao, S., Trahan, S., Kwon, Y., Liu, Q., Tong, M.,...Gall, R. Community Support and Transition of Research to Operations for the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting Model. This article is available at DigitalCommons@URI: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/561

COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND TRANSITION OF RESEARCH TO OPERATIONS FOR THE HURRICANE

AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

As the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific