The 2016 NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed Spring Experiment will kick off on Monday, April 18. During the course of the experiment, meteorologists from across the United States will come to Norman, Oklahoma, to develop, test, and evaluate severe weather forecast and warning techniques with researchers at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory and the NOAA National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.
Each year, the HWT conducts two programs during the spring to review emerging ideas and answer the question, “What do forecasters need?” The Experimental Warning Program and Experimental Forecast Program draw as many as 60 researchers and forecasters together for six to eight weeks from April to June. Emergency managers and broadcasters are also involved in the research.
The 2016 Spring Experiment will include four major projects, co-organized by NSSL and SPC. First, the GOES-R experiment will prepare forecasters to use data from NOAA’s next generation of geostationary weather satellites. Three NWS forecasters and one broadcaster will participate each week. Next, two different experiments will test the early concepts of FACETs with the newly designed Probabilistic Hazards Information tool. The Hazards Services-PHI experiment will include two NWS forecasters each week, evaluating software design using archive and real-time data. In the PHI-Prototype Experiment, three NWS forecasters per week will create probabilistic forecasts for severe convective hazards using the PHI tool. Finally, in late June, the Hydro experiment, part of the Hydrometeorological Testbed, will continue its focus on flash flood watches and warnings, with five forecasters participating during each segment of its three-week run.
Dates for the 2016 Hazardous Weather Testbed experiments are as follows:
April 18-22 GOES-R
April 25-29 GOES-R
May 2-6 GOES-R, Hazard Services-PHI
May 9-13 GOES-R, PHI – Prototype
May 16-20 Hazard Services-PHI
May 23-27 PHI- Prototype
May 31-June 4 Hazard Services-PHI
June 6-10 PHI – Prototype
June 20-24 Hydro
June 27-July 1 Hydro
July 11-15 Hydro
Members of the press are invited to attend a media day at 10 a.m. April 14 to learn more about these projects. More information about the HWT is available on our newly redesigned web page: http://hwt.nssl.noaa.gov/.
