NWS Office of Science and Technology Integration: Unified Forecast System

Agency: Department of Commerce

11.468 -- Applied Meteorological Research

Archived opportunityLast Updated: May 13, 2026

Description

NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Science and Technology Integration (OSTI) is soliciting research proposals to support NOAA’s development of the community-based, coupled, comprehensive earth modeling system, the Unified Forecast System (UFS). The UFS is designed to provide more accurate forecast guidance through operational numerical weather prediction applications. These applications span local and global domains, and predictive time scales from sub-hourly to seasonal. This solicitation favors projects at specific stages of maturity as signified by their readiness level as described in Section 1.A....

There are three competitions from this notification valued at approximately $2,800,000 for the first year of multi-year (2-year) projects that will advance development of the UFS: 1) Next Generation Global Prediction System (NGGPS); 2) Weeks 3-4 Program; and 3) Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP).

Research projects to advance NGGPS will propose accelerating development of improved global weather prediction models; coupling among atmosphere, ocean, land surface and ice system model components; improving data assimilation techniques; improving ensemble techniques; developing post-processing forecast tools and techniques; or improving software architecture, computational performance and system engineering.

Proposals pertaining to the advancement of the Weeks 3-4 program will focus on the development of a coupled UFS system including data assimilation approaches, extending the forecast of the UFS from 3 weeks to seasonal timescales, and developing metrics including validation and verification.

Proposals for the HFIP initiative will relate to research required to improve operational tropical cyclone forecasting to meet societal requirements to effectively mitigate economic disruption.

Eligibility

Eligible applicants

Miscellaneous

Other

Additional information

Eligible applicants are U.S. institutions of higher education; U.S.-based commercial organizations; state, local and Indian tribal governments in the U.S.; and other U.S. non-profit organizations and federally funded educational institutions such as the Naval Postgraduate School. Any federal employee or federal contractor listed as a co-PI, co-I, or collaborator on the title page of a proposal (if eligible) must have provided explicit pre-approval to the PI to be identified as a contributor to the proposed project prior to submission of the application. A letter of support or email acknowledging participation in the proposed project by the federal employee or federal contractor must be included within the application. All funded investigators must assure and verify, if requested, that they will not be allocated for greater than 100% of their annual employment time should their proposal be selected for funding. NOAA will verify this requirement if funding is recommended.

Grantor contact information

Description

For questions about this announcement, contact the NWS OSTI Modeling Program Office via email at nws.sti.modeling.team@noaa.gov.

Email

Wok

nws.sti.modeling.team@noaa.gov

Documents

File name	Description	Last updated
NOAA-NWS-NWSPO-2020-2006290_NOFO_Report.pdf	Full Announcement	Nov 1, 2019 08:11 PM UTC

Link to additional information

Archived: March 8, 2020

Application process

This site is a work in progress. Go to www.grants.gov to apply, track application status, and subscribe to updates.

Award

$2,800,000

Program Funding

Expected awards

$100,000

Award Minimum

$250,000

Award Maximum

Funding opportunity number:

NOAA-NWS-NWSPO-2020-2006290

Cost sharing or matching requirement:

Funding instrument type:

Cooperative agreement

Opportunity Category:

Discretionary

Opportunity Category Explanation:

Category of Funding Activity:

Environment

Natural resources

Science technology and other research and development

Category Explanation:

History

Version:

Posted date:

November 1, 2019

Archive date:

March 8, 2020