NOAA’s powerful new supercomputers paved the way for another upgrade to the U.S. Global Forecast System (GFS), NOAA’s primary model for weather prediction. The upgrade builds on last year’s significant boost to the GFS, which more than doubled the resolution of the model grid from 27 kilometers to 13 kilometers, resulting in higher resolution model output and more precise weather forecasts and warnings.

Today’s shift to four-dimensional ensemble hybrid data assimilation takes into account how weather systems evolve on a 3-D spatial grid over time, with time now becoming the fourth dimension. This approach makes better use of earth observations used to initialize the model which gives forecasters a more accurate and timely picture of evolving weather situations.

The GFS is the foundation for all of weather and climate models, so the upgrade will add skill across all NOAA’s forecast mission areas, including hurricanes and other high-impact weather,” said Louis Uccellini, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “Current investments in more powerful supercomputers, advanced modeling capabilities, and better earth observing systems are creating more precision in the forecast process and strengthening America’s resiliency to extreme weather, water and climate events.”

Uccellini added that this GFS upgrade is the latest of a number of model improvements rolling out this spring and summer, thanks to increased supercomputing power NOAA acquired earlier this year. “America’s needs for weather, climate, and water information and prediction are growing, and we’re advancing our capabilities to meet current and future demand,” he said.

 

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