The less-than-predicted amount of oil reaching coastlines after the Deepwater Horizon spill illuminates the difference between a projection and an actual forecast and the challenges of making short-term projections of natural processes that can act chaotically.

A case study from NCAR looks at how coastal residents assessed their risks and made decisions leading up to Hurricane Ike.

A new study from NCAR uses an innovative computer model to investigate events called sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) in the Arctic atmosphere. The study focuses on how two atmospheric patterns based in the tropics, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, affect SSWs.

Last year, a team of NCAR scientists verified that the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) can be used to depict seasonal snowfall in Colorado with a high degree of accuracy. Now the team is using WRF to forecast future snowfall.

A new NCAR study compares two different methods for forecasting power production at wind farms: turbine-based versus farm-based.