Courses

In times of record breaking floods and droughts, policymakers and the public are becoming increasingly aware of the need to improve the operation of the nation’s water resources. To maintain access to reliable and affordable water supply, water managers must regularly make decisions under uncertainty. Weather and water forecasts are important tools to minimize this uncertainty but can be difficult to incorporate into decision-making processes.

In an effort to address this challenge, NOAA recently created the National Water Center to bring together scientists from different agencies and produce the first continental United States water forecast. Additionally, the 2017 Weather Act requests NOAA to improve forecasts on subseasonal and seasonal time scales which could be instrumental to future water resource management.

Bringing together scientists and managers from across the United States, the primary goal for this workshop is to identify opportunities for more effective collaboration between forecasters and water managers. During the workshop, we will take stock of the current quality and use of weather and streamflow forecasts in different regions on different time scales (days to months).