The Hydrometeorology Testbed (HMT) at the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) was established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in order to accelerate the assessment and implementation of new technology, research results, and other scientific advancements from the research and development communities to enhance WPC products and services. The HMT-WPC is designed to enhance and extend forecast skill for high-impact weather, especially precipitation, by facilitating interactions among researchers, operational forecasters, and users. Ultimately, project proposals related to this mission will be solicited from both the meteorological and hydrological communities.
One of the primary functions of the HMT-WPC is to facilitate science infusion from the research and modeling communities to WPC and WFO field forecasters (Research to Operations, or "R2O"). The WPC has over 30 forecasters on staff who work a variety of forecast desks from QPF to medium range to model diagnostics. Our forecast domain covers the entire continental United States (CONUS) as well as Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
The HMT-WPC invites researchers from both government labs and academia to spend time working with WPC forecasters and the HMT team for a period of time. This invitation is an opportunity for researchers to bring their science to WPC and test it operationally. It is also an opportunity for teaching researchers to gather prediction materials to present to their students. Please note that the HMT-WPC is willing to serve as a co-investigator with researchers interested in working with us.
If you are a researcher and would like to work with the HMT-WPC, here are our main science priorities:
- Improve understanding and forecast methodologies for extreme rainfall events, including the application of high-resolution modeling and ensemble approaches
- Improve both warm and cold season quantitative precipitation forecasting (QPF)
- Develop operational feature-based verification techniques applied to model and human forecasts
- Develop better techniques to incorporate uncertainty derived from short and medium range ensembles forecasts into the forecast process and convey this uncertainty to users of WPC products
- Develop improved techniques for the prediction of freezing and frozen precipitation events (timing, areal coverage, intensity, and amount)
- Develop better understanding and application of climate-weather connections (i.e. MJO, GWO and annular mode indices) to improve medium range forecasts
If you are interested in engaging with the HMT-WPC please contact Jim Nelson or Jimmy Correia
