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Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors

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RIKIAWS:
Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors–

The recent devastation from both Hurricane Helene and Milton highlights the destructive force of water and not only underscores the importance of designing resilient infrastructure but also having available actionable decision support services during extreme weather and water events. To strengthen community resilience and minimize the impact of flooding, the NWS’ Office of Water Prediction has recently released three advancements in capabilities.

(1) Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) expands to over 30% of the country
Experimental FIM services deliver a new generation of water prediction services, allowing emergency managers and the public to access and view near real-time inundation maps that provide neighborhood level, actionable information. The maps display current and forecast flood inundation extent that are viewable using the NWS National Water Prediction Service (NWPS),  the NWS Geographic Information System (GIS) Viewer or by customer map viewers that access the NWS map services directly.

(2)  Atlas 14 Volume 12 released
On September 19, 2024, NOAA released NOAA Atlas 14 Volume 12 covering the interior Northwest states: Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. NOAA Atlas 14 is the current authoritative source and standard for precipitation frequency information and is used for the design of civil engineering and transportation infrastructure Americans rely on everyday. NOAA Atlas 14 is referenced in many engineering design standards and floodplain regulations, published by entities outside of NOAA (e.g. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM)).The NOAA Atlas 14 studies assume a stationary climate and will include one more update with the implementation of Volume 13 (Mid-Atlantic) in late 2025/early 2026.

(3) Atlas 15 Pilot Released
On September 26, 2024, NOAA released the NOAA Atlas 15 Pilot over the state of Montana to provide stakeholders with an early first look at the data to collect feedback before the final studies are published in 2026 and 2027 for the CONUS and oCONUS, respectively. The release of Atlas 15 pilot data is intended for comparison and feedback purposes as it has not completed the peer review process (as is standard with all authoritative NOAA precipitation frequency datasets like NOAA Atlas 14).

NOAA Atlas 15 will contain two volumes and will supersede NOAA Atlas 14 when published in 2026 and 2027. Volume 1 will use the latest observed precipitation data and nonstationary statistical methods to generate spatially continuous precipitation frequency estimates that represent the most current conditions. Volume 2 will leverage climate model outputs (e.g. CMIP5/6 models) to project Volume 1 estimates through 2100 as a function of climate scenario and Global Warming Level (i.e. degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial time period; 2023 represents 1.1 degrees above the baseline).

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Weather-Ready Nation Team
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