Latest News

June 15: GSL will demonstrate model advances in the 4-week Flash Flood and Intense Rainfall (FFaIR) experiment hosted by the Weather Prediction Center Hydrometeorology Testbed. The experiment brings together researchers and forecasters from across the meteorological community to work towards the common goal to enhance forecasting skill related to flash...

GSL’s Jeff VanBuskirk has been awarded a NOAA Bronze Medal “For identifying and implementing innovative data center upgrades to increase efficiency and resiliency for Research Supercomputing in NOAA.” The NOAA Bronze Medal is awarded for superior performance characterized by outstanding or significant contributions that have increased the efficiency and effectiveness...

CIRES announced the 2020 winners of their CIRES Outstanding Performance Awards targeted to honor projects that are novel, high impact, and show remarkable creativity or resourcefulness. GSL researchers won two awards in the “Service” category — projects that are successful because of the utility they have within the community. GSL/CIRES...

On March 31, 2020, GSD’s John Brown and NCAR’s Matt Kelsch will mark 30 years of daily weather observations taken at the Boulder NWS Cooperative Observation Program (COOP) site at the Department of Commerce campus. The minimum length of time to establish a “climatology” for a site is 30 years....

GSD and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) through the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) announced upgraded tools for the modeling community to experiment with and advance physical parameterizations for numerical weather prediction. The Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) v4.0.0, along with the CCPP Single Column Model (SCM), were released...

A GSD team had a significant role in the first public release of the user-friendly Unified Forecast System (UFS) Medium-Range Weather Application on March 11. This accomplishment took outstanding dedication and cross-agency collaboration. We congratulate the team that has been on the front lines of this work: GSD: Ligia Bernardet,...

GSD modelers have created a 1km High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) nest over the Great Lakes region this winter to support the FAA-led In-Cloud ICing and Large drop Experiment (ICICLE) project from January through March 2019. The ICICLE field campaign will collect atmospheric data from airborne and ground-based sensors to better...

GSD researchers Stan Benjamin and John Brown were lead authors on a chapter called “100 Years of Progress in Forecasting and NWP Applications” for the American Meteorological Society Centennial Monograph. Co-authors include Gilbert Brunet, Environment and Climate Change Canada; Peter Lynch, University College Dublin; Kazuo Saito, AORI, University of Tokyo;...

By the order of Sherman’s Lagoon, Gary Matlock, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science, presented Penny Granville, GSD’s Administrative Officer, with the Silver Sherman Award. Penny is honored for her commitment and dedication to driving GSD toward administrative excellence. She has demonstrated leadership, foresight, commitment, and teamwork that will pay off...

Since mid-2017, a NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) / National Weather Service (NWS) cross-line office team has been working together to improve lake-effect snow, lake ice, and visibility forecasts. Lake-effect snowfall is one of the most hazardous weather events in the Great Lakes region, and forecasting the timing and...

GSD Forecast Impact and Quality Assessment Section (FIQAS) scientists are co-hosting a workshop to demonstrate GSD experimental tools to NWS meteorologists from the Aviation Weather Center and 21 aviation-focused regional offices. The workshop will be held on April 25-26, 2019 at the FAA‘s Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC)...

GSD’s modeling team will demonstrate several advanced real-time experimental prediction systems in the 2019 NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Spring Forecasting Experiment (SFE) from April 29 through May 31 in Norman, OK. The HWT SFE is organized by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center (SPC) and the NOAA National Severe Storms...

Several GSD researchers presented their work at the European Geophysical Union (EGU) General Assembly in Vienna, Austria in early April. Their talks and posters are summarized below. Forecasting smoke, visibility and smoke-weather interactions using a coupled meteorology-chemistry modeling system: Rapid Refresh andHigh-Resolution Rapid Refresh coupled with Smoke (RAP/HRRR-Smoke) – Ravan...

GSD researchers Stan Benjamin and John Brown co-authored “100 Years of Progress in Forecasting and NWP Applications,” a chapter in the AMS Centennial Monograph, published by The American Meteorological Society (AMS). The chapter discusses how the international scientific community has collaboratively transformed weather forecasting and Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) into...

The 167th Science on a Sphere is being installed in Midland, TX this month and John Schneider’s last day at NOAA was June 28. Please see the July 2019 edition of In The Loop with NOAA Science On a Sphere for details on these stories an other SOS activities. For...

GSD researchers hosted more than a dozen participants for two types of tests of the Hazard Services system in July in the GSD Forecast Center. Hazard Services will modernize how National Weather Service (NWS) and National Centers for Environmental Prediciton (NCEP) create forecasts, watches, and warnings. The system provides a...

The Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences awarded the 2019 Charles L. Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal to GSD Senior Scientist Stan Benjamin during its annual Wilson Awards Banquet. The Hosler Medal is awarded to an alumi who has made outstanding contributions to the development of science through research,...

Free tool helps teachers, students understand the Earth An enormous earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded, rocked southern Chile on May 22, 1960 and created a tsunami that raced across the Pacfic Ocean. As giant waves rippled outward, they sped along the shore and bounced back and forth off islands,...

GSD met a major multi-year milestone on September 4, 2019, when a significant upgrade to the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) went live in NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) operations. MADIS ingests weather data from both NOAA and non-NOAA providers, implemented quality control checks, and provides an interface for...

Jennifer Mahoney, previously Acting Director of the Global Systems Division (GSD) of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, has been selected to lead the weather forecasting and technology development program. She assumed her new role as Director on October 28. As Deputy Director of GSD since 2013, Mahoney transformed and strengthened...