The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is working to enhance the Global Forecast System weather model in an effort to improve U.S. weather forecasting, including hurricane origins, snowfall location and heavy rainfall.
NOAA's current weather forecast model will combine with the WaveWatchIII, a global wave model used for ocean wave prediction, NOAA said Monday.
NOAA expects the combination to consolidate weather and wave forecasts, streamlining operations at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The update will also include atmospheric physics enhancements to support rain and snow forecasts.
“These upgrades are part of the Next Generation Global Prediction System (NGGPS) within the Unified Forecast System offsite link framework, which is an ongoing effort to leverage the expertise of the broader weather community and expedite the research to operations pathway,” said Vijay Tallapragada, chief of the modeling and data assimilation branch within NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center.
“By coupling the WaveWatchIII and GFS models, we will extend current wave forecasts and integrate wave forecasting into the global model to streamline model products," he added.
