U.S. Numerical Weather Prediction is Crippled by the Division between NOAA and the Academic Community. But a Rare Opportunity Beckons.
U.S. global weather prediction run by NOAA/National Weather Service is now in fourth place among national centers and FAR behind what one would expect from the world-leading U.S. weather research community. Why? The answer is clear: the vast U.S. weather community does not work together effectively in developing weather prediction models and transitioning research to operations. NOAA has highly competent and motivated weather modeling researchers in its several labs and in the National Weather Service. The center of U.S. academic research in meteorology and modeling is located at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, an entity run by consortium of U.S. universities (UCAR: the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research). The U.S. Navy also does research and development on weather prediction models in places like the Naval Research Lab in Monterey. But with all these labs and researchers, the U.S. cannot field a world-leading weather predict