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NDFD web services go operational in Web Operations Center
May 08, 2024The National Weather Service’s National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) produces weather, water, and climate digital forecast grids based on mosaics of forecasts from forecast offices and national centers. The NDFD Central Server creates and encodes national gridded datasets as GRIB2 files for dissemination via the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG). Two key products of the NDFD include the Web Map Viewer and the XML Web Services. In April, the NOAA Web Operations Center began hosting NDFD Web Services that were formerly hosted by the NWS Internet Dissemination System. These services include full-resolution (up to 2.5km, hourly) maps and XML point web services for all operational and experimental NDFD forecast elements.
P-Surge Upgrade NOAA Press Release
May 02, 2023On May 2, 2023, NOAA upgraded its Probabilistic Storm Surge (P-Surge) model — the primary model for predicting storm surge associated with high-impact weather like hurricanes and tropical storms — to version 3.0. This upgrade, developed by the Decision Support Division of MDL, advances storm surge modeling and forecasting for the contiguous U.S. (CONUS), Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and comes just in time for the 2023 hurricane season beginning on June 1 and running through November 30.
Mr. Richard (Rich) Bandy Selected as New MDL Director
Jul 11, 2022Mr. Richard (Rich) Bandy has been selected as the new Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL) Director, effective July 17, 2022. Meet Mr. Bandy in this article which appeared in NWS Insider on July 7.
MDL Leads the Way in Providing Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Forecasts to the Public
Jun 24, 2021Now that warmer weather is again upon us, “fans” of MDL and its products will take comfort in knowing that we have been working diligently to bring groundbreaking, new heat-related forecast guidance to the NWS and general public. Over the past couple of years, scientists in MDL’s Digital Forecast Services Division (DFSD) have collaborated with other field experts in the development of a new software application to calculate the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, or WBGT, from other parameters within the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). Early this year, the current operational version was implemented on the NDFD central server. This work is being expanded by the Statistical Modeling Division (SMD) to utilize the new NDFD algorithm in generating forecasts of WBGT from the suite of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models used as input to the National Blend of Models (NBM). We introduce the WBGT, for those who may be unfamiliar with this relatively new heat-related variable, and discuss the evolution of MDL's efforts to develop these new products.