Hurricane Forecasters Have Several New Tools to Help Keep You Safe This Season

Leading the way is NOAA's new Finite-Volume on a Cubed-Sphere (FV3) weather-forecasting tool, which will be put to work for the first time.

Its debut marks the beginning of a major transition for weather prediction models during the next few years at NOAA.

Experimental hurricane forecasts driven by the new FV3 will be run alongside current operational models that have been used for years. The National Hurricane Center will be able to use and evaluate this experimental guidance for the first time this hurricane season.

The FV3 was selected last year by NOAA as the major driver of the new GFS model that is expected to launch in 2019. GFS stands for Global Forecast System, the primary global weather forecasting model produced by NOAA.

An upgraded Hurricane Weather Research Forecast (HWRF) model will be launched this summer. The upgraded HWRF model will be able to model tropical cyclones at resolutions down to 1.2 miles.

Another improvement forecasters will have at their disposal is a more robust sampling of weather observations, which are provided mostly by aircraft missions in and around storms. The better data will be incorporated into forecasting models in a more efficient manner this season, as well.

The recently launched GOES-16 satellite, which is still undergoing testing, is another tool meteorologists are looking forward to using this hurricane season. Imagery and data collected by the satellite will be more detailed than ever before.

These enhancements for the 2017 hurricane season join an array of other data sources that forecasters use to keep tabs on tropical storms and hurricanes each year.