Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System Developer

Description

SAIC is seeking a candidate to support the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in carrying out research and development work related to future operational hurricane forecast systems. The successful candidate will involve the development, testing, and evaluation of the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS), which is the Unified Forecast System’s (UFS) hurricane application, providing reliable, robust, and skillful model forecasts for tropical cyclones (TCs). The work location is at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP) in College Park, MD.

 

Responsibilities

The candidate will perform the job duties in a high-quality, independent, and collaborative way, assisting in managing projects, developing and applying innovative methods for the primary work areas. The candidate will work with EMC scientists and external collaborators to develop and evaluate the current and future operational hurricane forecast systems, as well as to design, develop and evaluate HAFS ensemble analysis and forecast for downstream applications. The candidate will work with advanced UFS infrastructure and multi-scale modeling framework, improving hurricane specific physics, data assimilation, dynamics, and high-resolution telescoping and moving nest techniques. Detailed responsibilities will include:

• Design, develop, test and evaluate the HAFS based ensemble forecast system.
• Optimize hurricane ensemble perturbations and improve ensemble spread.
• Find optimal number of HAFS ensemble members and develop probabilistic forecast products.
• Conduct HAFS ensemble simulations to provide atmospheric forcing for downstream applications.
• Conduct pre-implementation tests for annual experimental and operational hurricane model upgrades.
• Develop advanced scripts for flexible end-to-end system integration and automation.

Qualifications

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Qualifications

Bachelors Degree and four plus (4 ): Master’s Degree and two plus (2 ) or higher in atmospheric sciences or meteorology, oceanic, mathematics, or related physical science with at least 2 years of experience in the area of hurricane and tropical cyclone (TC) modeling. 

Demonstrated knowledge, skills, and abilities in the following areas:

• Advanced knowledge of tropical meteorology and experience in developing hurricane numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems for operational implementation.
• Experience/knowledge of hurricane model evaluation and verification.
• Excellent knowledge and skills of modern programming languages and object-oriented languages, such as FORTRAN90 and Python.
• Skills and knowledge of the High Performing Computing environment.
• Proficient with modern software development practices and version control software.
• Demonstrated skill in communicating effectively with scientists of diverse backgrounds on technical details of the work plan and present results accurately and clearly in both oral and written form.
• Ability to work independently on complex problems in a team and fast-paced environment and demonstrated skill in performing tasks requiring organization and attention to detail.

 

Desired Skills

• Familiarity with operational NWP and/or an operational forecasting environment.
• Experience with UFS applications and knowledge of earth system modeling.
• Experience in high-resolution model development in various infrastructures (ESMF, FMS, CCPP, etc.).

• Familiarity with agile software development practices.

Candidates must be a U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder to qualify and must live in US for 3-5 years prior to application

Covid Policy: SAIC does not require COVID-19 vaccinations or boosters. Customer site vaccination requirements must be followed when work is performed at a customer site.