23 hours Ago By Dave Downey
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A new piece of forecasting technology from the National Weather Service could revolutionize how severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings are issued in the future.
The Warn-on-Forecast System (WoFS) is a NOAA research project tasked with increasing lead times for tornado, severe thunderstorm, and flash flood warnings.Where to seek shelter in a tornado, according to the CBS 17 Storm TeamIt compiles satellite, radar, and surface observations, and takes all that data into a high-resolution model. The model updates every half hour, with the goal of issuing warnings up to an hour ahead of time.
Meteorologists using the Warn-on-Forecast System. (NOAA)It’s been in development for nearly a decade and was used for the strongest and deadliest tornado in the United States last year.“It gave us high confidence that we were going to have long track supercells capable of producing tornadoes or at least rotating storms,” said Michael Fowle, Science and Operations Officer with the National Weather Service forecast office in Des Moines, Iowa.
Fowle was one of the meteorologists issuing tornado warnings that day in 2024.Rocky Mount first responders recount EF-3 tornado 6 months later“Each successive run (of the model), it gave us confidence of the corridor where we expected those most intense storms to form,” Fowle said.That corridor was southwest Iowa.
The Greenfield EF4 tornado was on the ground for 48 minutes, with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. It killed five people and caused 35 injuries. Both of those numbers could’ve been much higher, if not for WoFS.
Over an hour before the tornado hit, Fowle and other NWS Des Moines meteorologists saw the threat coming.“It (WoFS) is going to provide more information that we can use to help inform the public and ultimately help save lives with it,” Fowle added.Right now, the model only runs on the most active severe weather days and in certain sections of the U.
S. There are plans to expand that over the coming years, including right here in central North Carolina..
