National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Back-to-Back Pacific Storms to Impact the West Coast; Heavy Snow in the Central Appalachians

Back-to-back powerful Pacific storm systems to impact the Pacific Northwest and northern California through the end of this week with heavy rain, flooding, strong winds, and higher elevation mountain snow. A strong, long-duration atmospheric river will accompany the Pacific storms, bringing excessive rainfall and flash flooding to southwest Oregon and northwest California through the week. Read More >

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photo of Dr. Stephan Smith

Dr. Stephan (Steve) Smith,
OSTI Director

The Office of Science and Technology Integration (STI) performs portfolio management for planning, research and development, and integration efforts for science and technology improvements across the NWS. STI analyzes requirements for service improvements from NWS field offices and National Centers through close coordination with the AFS Office; develops potential scientific and technological solutions through coordination with partners within NOAA and with the external research community; and sponsors applied research and development of programs/projects to address these requirements. Major research and development areas of the Office include, but are not limited to, improvement of operational atmosphere, ocean, land, sea ice, hydrological and other components of environmental prediction models, operational guidance and decision support tools, and social science integration.


The Office also establishes priorities for and oversees collaborative and applied research and development activities within NWS, in coordination with other NWS offices and NOAA line offices, as well as the research community. The Office provides a centralized coordination and management of field-driven innovation and research to operations transition programs and processes. These include but not limited to, testbeds, operational proving ground; the Science Operations Officer (SOO) and Development and Operations Hydrologist (DOH) Program; Collaborative Science, Technology, and Applied Research (CSTAR) Programs; as well as cross- cutting STI projects including social science integration and training.

The Office collaborates with the Central Processing and Dissemination offices to maintain and enhance a centralized research, development, and testing environment, which enables transitioning research to operations through streamlining development, testing, training and field implementation.


The Operational Proving Ground (OPG) facilitates testing of advanced operations, services, and science and technology (S&T) capabilities which address the needs of both internal and external users.  By creating a streamlined research-to-operations (R2O) and operations-to-research (O2R) process, an iterative, two-way interaction between S&T development and NWS operations is optimized.  To be considered for operational implementation, candidate capabilities must successfully introduce a new or enhanced operational capacity with no appreciable negative impact on existing systems and practices.  Particular emphasis is placed on applications which demonstrate substantive improvement to one or more of the following: the warning and forecast process, collaborative decision making, risk communication, and/or provision of impact-based decision support services.

 

 

Meteorological Development Laboratory

Contact
Rich Bandy
richard.bandy@noaa.gov
301-427-9495


The Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL) conducts applied research and development for the improvement of diagnostic and prognostic weather information; data depiction and utilization; warning and forecast product preparation and dissemination; forecast evaluation; and impact-based decision support services. Projects involve physical, dynamical, and statistical applications and tools implemented on NWS operational systems. Emphasis is placed on integrated suites of guidance and products for Weather Forecast Offices, River Forecast Centers, and National Centers, and NWS Core Partners. The Laboratory collaborates with other laboratories and centers within and outside of NOAA and actively seeks to identify new scientific and technical solutions in response to NWS mission requirements. The Laboratory provides science, technology, and development support to other elements of the Office of Science and Technology Integration (STI) as well as NWS as a whole.

+DIGITAL FORECAST SERVICES DIVISION

+STATISTICAL MODELING DIVISION

Contact
Geoffrey Manikin
geoffrey.manikin@noaa.gov
301-427-9475


Statistical Modeling Division Homepage
The Statistical Modeling Division develops and implements statistically-calibrated objective guidance products from numerical weather prediction models for weather elements for use at Weather Forecast Offices, National Centers, River Forecast Centers, and public and private customers. Lead times range from a few hours to two weeks. Innovative scientific approaches are investigated to produce interpretive multi-model ensemble guidance, and to quantify uncertainty of weather guidance to improve weather decision services. To support the development of statistical forecast guidance, a high quality archive of observations and model data is maintained.

+DECISION SUPPORT DIVISION

Contact
Judy Ghirardelli
judy.ghirardelli@noaa.gov
301-427-9496


Decision Support Division Homepage
The Decision Support Division develops and implements applications to synthesize, display, and manipulate data and guidance from various sources to aid the Weather Forecast Offices (WFO), River Forecast Centers, and National Centers forecasters in providing impact-based decision support services (IDSS) to core partners. Applications for automatically monitoring weather observations and forecasts are developed and implemented to alert the forecaster of the need to update warning and forecast products, especially for hazardous weather. The division develops forecast and warning guidance to support IDSS for special core partners such as those in the transportation (aviation, marine, and ground) sector.  The division also conducts interdisciplinary social science research in order to improve the value of NWS services.

+WEATHER INFORMATION APPLICATIONS DIVISION

Contact
Dave Ruth
david.ruth@noaa.gov
301-427-9457


Weather Information Applications Division Homepage

The Weather Information Applications Division develops and implements applications to support and enhance NWS service delivery, including impact-based decision support services and product dissemination. Application exploration is conducted for data modeling and web services. Prototyping and demonstration of new international standards is performed. The Division leads the development and maintenance of the NOAA Virtual Laboratory. It is an agency-level leader in cloud software development, testing and operations, and is responsible for developing and maintaining both on-premise and cloud development environments to support the NWS R2O mission.

 

 

Modeling Program Team

Contact
Jamese Sims
jamese.sims@noaa.gov

301-639-9454

The Science and Technology Integration (STI) Modeling Program Team is responsible for supporting a variety of NWS modeling and research initiatives to improve weather forecasts. This is accomplished by funding research projects to accelerate and advance the development of new models, and foster collaboration among NOAA research scientists, federal labs, operational forecasters and the academic community. Examples of programs managed by this program division include efforts to improve guidance for hurricane track, intensity, and storm surge forecasts; develop an end-to-end air quality forecast capability; advance research to extend forecast skill beyond 8-10 days; and implement a weather-scale, fully-coupled numerical weather prediction system.

+NGGPS (Dynamic Core Evaluation) 

Research to Operations (R2O) Team

Contact
Nicole Kurkowski
nicole.kurkowski@noaa.gov
301-427-9104


The STI Field Driven Research to Operations (R2O) Team is responsible for coordination and management of NWS field-driven innovation and research to operations transition programs. The team works closely with the NWS regional Scientific Services Divisions (SSDs), Office of Water Prediction and NCEP service centers to organize and facilitate projects with Science and Operations Officers (SOOs) and Development and Operations Hydrologists (DOHs) to integrate new or improved science and technology into field operations. The team also provides programmatic support to major NWS R2O initiatives in several areas including aviation weather, lightning, fire weather, and climate.