The Unified Forecast System (UFS) is a community-based, coupled, comprehensive Earth modeling system. The UFS numerical applications span local to global domains and predictive time scales from sub-hourly analyses to seasonal predictions. It is designed to support the Weather Enterprise and to be the source system for NOAA‘s operational numerical weather prediction applications.

The UFS provides a framework to engage the extensive research enterprise in the US. It creates an environment to more efficiently and effectively translate research advances into operational outcomes. The UFS also enables NOAA to simplify its production suite of forecasting models from a great many independent systems, each of which has to be improved and maintained, to a single seamless system.

UFS applications share numerical forecast system elements, including Earth-system model components (e.g. atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, land, chemistry, etc.), observation processing, pre-processing, data assimilation, forward forecasting, ensemble and probabilistic processing, and post-processing. The applications also share agreed-upon infrastructure such as model coupling tools and workflow software.

The UFS community includes researchers, developers and users from NOAA, educational institutions, federal agencies, and the private sector.

The UFS supports research and development in the community and accelerates the transition of research successes to operations.

For more detailed information about the UFS please visit here.