NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed
The NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed is a joint project of the National Weather Service and the National Severe Storms Laboratory. The HWT provides a conceptual framework and a physical space to foster collaboration between research and operations to test and evaluate emerging technologies and science for NWS operations. The HWT was borne from the “Spring Program” which, for the last decade, has been used to test and evaluate new forecast models, techniques, and products to support NWS Storm Prediction Center forecast operations.
Since the “Spring Program,” the HWT has evolved to consist of two primary programs. The original NSSL/SPC “Spring Program” is now known as the Experimental Forecast Program, or EFP. The other activity is the Experimental Warning Program, or EWP, which is designed to test and evaluate new applications, techniques, and products to support NWS Weather Forecast Office severe convective weather warning operations.
We're watching it happen; this is not a case study that happened last year. It gives [participants] a real-time environment. Case studies have their place, but really, you have to be able to use the system in real time. A case study, you've got days to assimilate the data; real time you've got minutes.—Lori Schultz, Univ. of Alabama