The Unified Forecast System (UFS) is a framework for modeling Earth Systems. It is a community based system, where the community is the Weather Enterprise, composed of researchers, developers, and users from NOAA, educational institutions, federal agencies, and the private sector. The UFS supports research and development across the enterprise, inspires application-based research, and accelerates the transition of research innovations to forecasting operations in NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS).
The UFS contains several essential components for modeling Earth Systems. The foundation of the framework is a library of coupled numerical models that simulate the Earth’s physical processes. The system also includes pre-processing components for a wide variety of observation types and algorithms for assimilating observational data into a form that can be used to initialize either single-member or ensemble prediction systems. In addition, the system provides post-processing tools to generate deterministic and/or probabilistic predictions as well as verification and validation of products.
The UFS also has configurable infrastructure, which can be tailored to optimize performance for specific applications based on common component-coupling tools and workflow software. Examples of current UFS-based operational NWS applications include Medium-Range Weather, Hurricanes, and Air Quality, while several other specific applications are in later stages of development.
Samples from the UFS Short Range Weather
UFS History Timeline
December 07, 2015
Inaugural report from UCACN Modeling Advisory Committee (UMAC)
This report made recommendations on numerical environmental prediction. Emphasizing that the US is no longer a world leader in operational numerical environmental prediction. Optimistically, the report identified potential for improvements in this field because of the extensive research community in the US. Key suggestions included reducing complexity, improving decision making, unifying efforts, and leveraging the external community.
UCACN is the UCAR Community Advisory Committee for NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction)
“A key finding of the UMAC committee is an optimistic one: U.S. environmental prediction, although lagging, has the potential to progress rapidly to world leadership. But this will only occur if fundamental changes are made in NOAA/NWS/NCEP operations, how research and development in NOAA operational environmental prediction is organized, and how NOAA works with the outside research community.”
Fun Fact
The UMC later became the NOAA Unified Modeling Task Force (UMTF) and now a version of this committee still exists today as the NOAA Modeling Team
May 2016
NOAA Unified Modeling Task Force (UMTF) Created
This task force was charged with producing a strategy that would effectively guide NOAA towards a unified modeling approach. Ten to fifteen members were nominated by the NOAA Research Council (now the NOAA Science Council) to represent NOAA.
See Paper Release: High-level NOAA Unified Modeling Overview for their findings. There was also a Correspondence in Nature in September 2017 describing this document.
July 2016
NOAA selects FV3 dynamic core
A dynamic core is the engine that drives a numerical weather prediction model. This dynamic core, Finite-Volume on a Cubed-Sphere (FV3) was developed at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL).
The selection of FV3 was not chosen lightly. A dynamical core test group (DTG) was created that included federal, academic, and subject matter experts to conduct an assessment and provide recommendations (more information). The FV3 dycore was selected because it can run at a higher resolution, and zoom in on smaller storm systems. This well help improve forecast predictions in the long term
Fun Fact
Initially, GFDL’s FV3 was chosen over NCAR’s MPAS dycore, but new work is currently in place to include MPAS as a second dycore
April 18, 2017
Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act (Public Law 115-25, or the “Weather Act”)
The goal of this legislation was to improve NOAA’s weather research through investments in observational, computing, and modeling capabilities. It also intended to support improvements in weather forecasting and prediction of high impact weather events, and expand commercial opportunities for the provision of weather data.
January 2019
Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) is federally mandated.
In 2018, Congress passed the National Integrated Drought Information System Reauthorization Act. This law added language to the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act (WRFIA) that was passed in 2017 and called for the creation of an Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) to “advanc[e] weather modeling skill, reclaiming and maintaining international leadership in the area of numerical weather prediction, and improv[e] the transition of research into operations.”
September 2019
William M. Lapenta Student Internship program begins
Each summer, a Lapenta Student Intern joins the EPIC team and UFS community as a UFS Student Ambassador.
“In recognition of the many contributions of Dr. William (Bill) Lapenta to advance NOAA science and services and his dedication to training the next generation of scientists, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established the William M. Lapenta Student Internship Program in 2019. The program builds on the highly successful National Weather Service (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Internship which Bill created in 2017.”
November 2019
UFS Steering Committee (UFS-SC) Charter and UFS Technical Oversight Boards (TOB) Charter signed
The UFS Steering Committee was created to govern the content of the community-based UFS. This group is responsible for approving strategic direction and plans for the UFS as well as recommending content and a development path for the UFS production suite.
Part of the role of the UFS Steering Committee is implementation and maintenance of the Strategic Implementation Plan and the UFS Strategic Plan
July 2020
UFS R2O project launched
From anniversary report: “The UFS-R2O project was conceived with a focus on leveraging the nascent UFS community to build two new operational predictions systems from the ground up - a six-way global coupled (atmosphere/ocean/land/sea-ice/wave/aerosol) ensemble system for medium-range and seasonal to sub-seasonal (S2S) prediction, and a regional, high-resolution hourly-updating and convection-allowing ensemble system for prediction of severe weather. The project began in July 2020 as collaboration between the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Environmental Modeling Center, 8 NOAA research labs, The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the Naval Research Lab and 6 universities and Cooperative Institutes
An example of R2O in action: “NOAA’s Great Lakes Wave Prediction System: A Successful Framework for Accelerating the Transition of Innovations to Operations” This is the paper
