Hurricane forecasting will get a $13-million boost if Congress approves a budget increase proposed this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.</p><p>NOAA announced Monday that it wants to increase spending from $4 million to a total of $17 million for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 to improve hurricane forecasts.</p><p>“I’m excited about that” funding increase, said Matt Strahan, Meteorologist in Charge of the National Weather Service forecast office in Key West.</p><p>The increased funding will pay for scientific research, computer systems and equipment that hurricane forecasters use to gather data from storms, NOAA announced in a press release.</p><p>Steve Gallagher, NOAA budget director, said in a phone call that the funding increase would be a “significant bump up” for spending on hurricane research and forecasting. </p><p>NOAA’s total budget is $4 billion, with $1 billion of that going to all weather-related agencies, Gallagher said. The requested funding is in addition to $242 million budgeted for the weather satellite program, which will launch a next-generation GOES satellite in 2014.</p><p>NOAA has a multi-agency plan to improve the accuracy of hurricane forecasts, the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, which it began after the unprecedented 2005 storm season.</p><p>The project aims to make storm track forecasts and storm intensity forecasts 20 percent more accurate on the first through fifth days by 2013. Plans also call for extending forecasts from five to seven days.</p><p>About half of the 2009 spending will be for beefing up computer systems. NOAA uses a supercomputer system in Gaithersburg, Md. to run complex weather models that hurricane forecasters use.</p><p>Gallagher said the agency plans to increase funding for computer improvements for the next several years.</p><p>More computer power would let forecasters run current weather models quicker and at higher resolution - to show more details of a storm’s possible path and intensity - and make it easier to work on improving the models, Gallagher said.</p><p>Strahan said faster output from model runs “would give the forecasters more time to digest everything,” before making forecasts. “If they can run the models at higher resolution, that typically means greater accuracy” for forecasting scenarios as well, Strahan said.</p><p>Gallagher said the agency expects bipartisan support in Congress for the increased funding request. These types of requests “tend to get support from the members in the coastal states” including Florida, he said.</p><p>NOAA is earmarking part of the increased funding for gathering data in storms. Gallagher said it will pay for more flight hours for hurricane hunters, more sensors to be deployed in storms, and improved radar systems on the planes that fly into hurricanes.