Matthias Steiner (RAL/HAP), Richard Bateman (CU), Daniel Megenhardt (RAL/WSAP), Yubao Liu (RAL/NSAP), Matthew Pocernich (Neptune and Company, Inc.), Jimmy Krozel (Metron Aviation)

This article presents an elegant, highly innovative, and broadly influential conceptual framework for using probabilistic forecasting to characterize and manage the risk that weather poses to air traffic. The framework is demonstrated through a case study of a very disruptive and costly outbreak of thunderstorms in the northeastern United States. Beyond just this demonstration, the framework has the potential to transform how our society conceives, builds, uses, and evaluates weather-based decision-support technologies. Several letters of support highlight the framework's extensibility - NOAA's Robert Maxson calls it "the [probabilistic forecast] guidance of the future." Although published less than three years ago, the article has already advanced technology that is being used at NOAA's Aviation Weather Testbed. Experts in probabilistic forecasting and risk management describe the article as a "ground breaker" and "a well-written roadmap to both the scientific community and user community on where we as a nation should be headed in ensemble weather prediction research and operations." The article embodies the finest qualities of the work done in RAL: imaginative; cross-disciplinary; cross-organizational; and beneficial to communities of scientists, engineers, and end-users. It also epitomizes NCAR's overarching mission of science in service to society.

Julie Demuth (NCAR/RAL), Rebecca Morss (NCAR/MMM), Betty Hearn Morrow (SocResearch, Miami, FL), and Jeff Lazo (NCAR/RAL).

This work represents an important effort to connect the forecast community that generates high-impact weather warnings, the emergency management community that uses these warnings to determine protective response actions, and the media who deliver the risk, warning, and response action information to the public to save lives and property. In doing so, this effort fully embraces an institutional imperative set forth in the new NCAR Strategic Plan: "Integrate the physical and social sciences to provide meaningful, useable information on the societal impacts of and vulnerabilities to climate change ...and improve the communication of risk and uncertainty to a diverse population." In their article, Demuth et al. outline the complex interactions among components of the United States hurricane warning system and elucidate the challenges in communicating risk through an effective partnership. This paper identifies concepts that researchers may have observed or thought of, and it ties those ideas together in a novel, coherent way of explaining the warning system. The study clearly reveals that collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, and between researchers and practitioners, is needed to understand and improve the translation and communication of weather threats into risk reduction actions.

Daran L. Rife, James O. Pinto, Andrew J. Monaghan, Christopher A. Davis, and John R. Hannan

Roy Rasmussen, Changhai Liu, Kyoko Ikeda, David Gochis, David Yates, Fei Chen, Michael Barlage, Jimy Dudhia, Wei Yu, Kathleen Miller, Vanda Grubišić, Gregory Thompson, and Ethan Gutmann, with Mukul Tewari (IBM Watson Research Center) and Kristi Arsenault (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

High-resolution coupled climate runoff simulations of seasonal snowfall over Colorado: A process study of current and warmer climate.

Characterizing Uncertainty of the Hydrologic Impacts of Climate Change

Martyn P. Clark, Robert L. Wilby, Ethan D. Gutmann, Julie A. Vano, Subhrendu Gangopadhyay, Andrew W. Wood, Hayley J. Fowler, Christel Prudhomme, Jeffrey R. Arnold & Levi D. Brekke 

Andrew Monaghan, Cory Morin (University of Washington), Daniel Steinhoff, Olga Wilhelmi, Mary Hayden, Dale Quattrochi (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Michael Reiskind (North Carolina State University), Alun Lloyd (North Carolina State University), Kirk Smith (Maricopa County Environmental Services), Christopher Schmidt , Paige Scalf (Durham University), and Kacey Ernst (University of Arizona)
 

For their contribution to aviation meteorology and aviation safety through the Joint Airport Weather Studies project.