This proposal brings together scientific expertise in observations, weather modeling, decision support, and social, behavioral, and economic science to address the prevailing fire weather issues…

The Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded a $5,158,772 Cooperative Agreement to The Regents of the University of Colorado, doing business as the University of Colorado Office of Contracts and Grants Division, under the Cooperative Institute (Inter-Agency Funded Activities) program (CFDA 11.405). The four-year award will fund research and development activities to improve short-range fire weather, smoke, and flash flood prediction capabilities in NOAA's Unified Forecast System (UFS). Key efforts include updating the UFS mesoscale analysis system to incorporate new diagnostic fire weather and air quality data, evaluating UFS model performance using emerging fire weather observations, and developing advanced impact-based decision support services to aid emergency response during fire and flood events. The University of Colorado, as a public research institution, will leverage its scientific expertise in areas such as numerical weather prediction, decision support systems, and social/behavioral science to deliver these improvements to NOAA's operational weather modeling and forecasting capabilities.

This proposal brings together scientific expertise in observations, weather modeling, decision support, and social, behavioral, and economic science to address the prevailing fire weather issues addressed by BIL provisions 05 and 15. Activities will include: - improvements to short range fire, weather, and smoke prediction capabilities in numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems that will ultimately be part of the unified forecast system (UFS); - updates to UFS mesoscale analysis systems to include additional diagnostic fields for fire weather and air quality applications as well as for aviation, renewable energy, and hydrology interests; - the use of new fire weather observation sets in evaluation and characterization of the performance and accuracy of UFS NWP and mesoscale analysis systems; - development of advanced impact-based decision support services (IDSS) systems to support fire weather events and flash flood events associated with burn scars