High Impact Weather

Hurricanes and extreme precipitation events can devastate lives and property. Dramatic storm surge and flash flooding caused by these events sustain the assault long after the weather moves out. But successfully communicating the risks of storm surge risk to the public, although crucial for preventing more loss of life and property damage, is tricky. Even the best forecasting fails if the public doesn’t understand the consequences. Our scientists are teaming with our partners and local communities to improve messaging through animated graphics, clearer wording used by the media for alerts, and public education.

Benefits and Impacts

Developing a State-of-the-Art Research and Operational Weather Forecasting Model

The model serves a wide range of meteorological applications across scales from tens of meters to thousands of kilometers. WRF has thousands of users around the world.

Austin Flooding aerial drone view from high above Colorado River and Red Bud Isle Flood waters with Austin , Texas skyline in the far distance

Developing an Improved Flood Prediction System

A custom configuration of WRF-Hydro® was adopted by the U.S. National Weather Service in 2016 as the operational NOAA National Water Model (NWM), which continuously forecasts hydrologic risk across the contiguous United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and South-Central Alaska. In the contiguous U.S. alone, the NWM expanded hydrologic forecasting coverage from about 3,800 locations to over 2.7 million, providing critical guidance to local forecasters and emergency responders, particularly in traditionally "hydro blind" areas. The NWM aided forecasting and response operations in Texas during 2017 Hurricane Harvey, in the Midwest during the 2019 floods, in Puerto Rico during 2022 Hurricane Fiona, and in North Carolina and Tennessee during 2024 Hurricane Helene, among others.

WRF-Hydro® also provides operational flood forecasts for Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as community research in flood prediction and risk assessments in many locations around the globe.

Fine-Scale Analysis and Nowcast System (FINECAST®)

FINECAST® Nowcasting System

FINECAST® serves a wide range of meteorological applications, such as severe-weather nowcasting, wind-power prediction, and hazardous-chemical detection, to name only a few. The true value of the model is that it can produce these analyses in mere minutes, delivering timely results to decision makers, forecasters, and utility managers.

DICast® integrates meteorological data and generates forecasts at user-defined sites and lead times. A single consensus forecast from the set of individual forecasts is generated at each user-defined forecast site based on a processing method that takes into account the recent skill of each forecast module.

Generating Automated, Timely, Accurate Forecasts Globally 10 Days Out

This technology has become a core prediction capability of several commercial weather companies including The Weather Channel, WSI, Schneider Electric, and Global Weather Corporation generating 10s of millions in business revenue for these companies.

Producing High-Quality Weather Forecasts in Remote Regions

LOGICast™ is being used as a core forecasting technology by commercial weather companies. Leveraging this system, other applications now include road temperature forecasts along an entire roadway, and soil temperature forecasts for agriculture.