The National Weather Service (NWS) recently upgraded the latest forecast guidance to help forecasters deliver the most consistent and accurate weather forecasts and warnings to the Nation.
The NBM is a nationally consistent suite of calibrated forecast guidance based on a blend of both NWS and non-NWS model output. On February 19, 2020, the latest version of the National Blend of Models (NBM), version 3.2, went operational to NWS meteorologists around the country! The goal of the NBM is to create a highly accurate, skillful, and consistent starting point for forecasts and is a foundational component in evolving NWS capabilities to achieve a Weather-Ready Nation.
The NWS operates 122 individual weather forecast offices across the United States and its territories and each of them is responsible for providing forecasts and warnings for their areas of responsibility, along with Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) to their partners in emergency management and government. Each office looks at all available observations and model guidance to create forecasts tailored to their analysis of the data. However, even when looking at the same data, forecasters with different areas of expertise and areas of focus can come up with slightly different forecasts over the same areas, which can lead to inconsistencies in the forecast. This is where the value of the NWS’s NBM comes into play. The NBM is a nationally consistent suite of calibrated forecast guidance leveraging both NWS and non-NWS model output. The goal of the NBM is to create a highly accurate, calibrated, skillful, and consistent starting point for NWS forecasters - a foundational component in evolving NWS capabilities to achieve a Weather-Ready Nation.
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