A new AI tool built by NSF NCAR can help forecasters look further into the future as they work to identify the potential for deadly severe weather outbreaks.

Covering the contiguous United States, the new Domestic Aviation Forecast System (DAFS) generates more detailed forecasts of evolving icing and turbulence risks, giving pilots real-time intelligence about changing weather conditions along their flight path. NSF NCAR researchers led the scientific development of the icing and turbulence capabilities for this system.

The new MESACLIP dataset consists of an unprecedented set of high-resolution Earth system simulations and is freely available to the scientific community.

NSF NCAR is continuing to improve targeted forecasts of weather impacts on roads and runways

As Hurricane Melissa approached Jamaica last month, a NOAA Hurricane Hunter airplane dropped a fleet of weather instruments called dropsondes into the depths of the storm. When the National Hurricane Center received the dropsonde data from the plane via satellite and processed the 252 mph reading, they cautiously began referring to the measurement as a potential record. In order to verify the reading, they contacted researchers at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), where dropsondes were developed, and asked them to verify the data.