An overview of the redeveloped Localized Aviation MOS Program (LAMP) for short-range forecasting

The National Weather Service’s (NWS) Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL) provides objective guidance to NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) to assist in forecasting sensible weather. LAMP, previously called the Local AWIPS MOS Program and now renamed the Localized Aviation MOS Program, is one such objective guidance product developed by MDL. LAMP was designed to run locally at WFOs within the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS), produce forecast guidance relevant to the WFO’s regional area, and serve as an update to Nested Grid Model (NGM) MOS guidance. This NGM-based LAMP system produces guidance for the contiguous United States (CONUS) and provides forecasts at hourly projections out to 20 hours. It has been running locally in AWIPS at WFOs in the CONUS since 1997 and runs every three hours, at 0200, 0500, 0800, ..., 2300 UTC (Kelly and Ghirardelli 1998).