NCEP Overview
Dr. Louis Uccellini
The National Centers for Environmental Prediction is “where America’s climate, weather and ocean services begin.” NCEP’s seven Service Centers, Central Operations and Environmental Modeling Center all contribute to its important role as a central component of the National Weather Service in delivering national and global weather, water, climate and space weather guidance, forecasts, warnings and analyses in order to meet the needs of an ever broadening community of users. This talk will review NCEP’s current “seamless suite” of products and models that extend from short-range weather to seasonal and inter-annual climate forecasts. Recent advancements in the forecasts of hurricanes, precipitation and climate patterns will be shown. The presentation will also include a review of recent examples of successful forecasts of major storm events for the central United States that include a more problematic approach in alerting the user community of the potential for severe winter outbreaks, winter storms and fire weather conditions a week in advance.