United Forecast System

A community-based, coupled Earth modeling system

A community-based, coupled Earth modeling system, the UFS, is under active development to support the Weather Enterprise and to be the source system for NOAA’s operational numerical weather prediction forecasts. The UFS numerical applications span local to global domains and predictive timescales from sub-hourly analyses to seasonal predictions. The first application released was the UFS Medium-Range Weather (MRW) Application, which targets atmospheric behavior out to approximately two weeks. The release included the Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere (FV3) dynamical core, the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) with four supported physics suites, including the current operational and developmental Global Forecast System (GFS) physics suites, pre-processing utilities, the Unified Post Processor (UPP), and a workflow to build and run the global forecast system. To ensure architectural flexibility and portability, the UFS uses modernized software and infrastructure, providing an opportunity for all parties to share and contribute information in a consistent and up-to-date manner.