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The Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) next generation convection-allowing, rapidly-updated ensemble prediction system, currently scheduled for operational implementation in 2026. The operational configuration will feature a 3 km grid covering North America and include deterministic forecasts every hour out to 18 hours, with deterministic and ensemble forecasts to 60 hours four times per day at 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC.The RRFS will provide guidance to support forecast interests including, but not limited to, aviation, severe convective weather, renewable energy, heavy precipitation, and winter weather on timescales where rapidly-updated guidance is particularly useful.<br/><br/>
The RRFS is underpinned by the [Unified Forecast System (UFS)](https://ufscommunity.org/), a community-based Earth modeling initiative, and benefits from collaborative development efforts across NOAA, academia, and research institutions.<br/[...]
Overview
The Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) next generation convection-allowing, rapidly-updated ensemble prediction system, currently scheduled for operational implementation in 2026. The operational configuration will feature a 3 km grid covering North America and include deterministic forecasts every hour out to 18 hours, with deterministic and ensemble forecasts to 60 hours four times per day at 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC.The RRFS will provide guidance to support forecast interests including, but not limited to, aviation, severe convective weather, renewable energy, heavy precipitation, and winter weather on timescales where rapidly-updated guidance is particularly useful.
The RRFS is underpinned by the Unified Forecast System (UFS) , a community-based Earth modeling initiative, and benefits from collaborative development efforts across NOAA, academia, and research institutions.
This bucket provides access to real time, experimental RRFS prototype output. And will provide access to final retrospective output once completed.
The real-time RRFS prototype is experimental and evolving. It is not under 24x7 monitoring and is not operational. Output may be delayed or missing. Outputs will change. When significant changes to output take place, this description will be updated.
We currently provide hourly deterministic forecasts at 3 km grid spacing out to 84 hours at 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC, and out to 18 hours for other cycles. Output is organized by cycle date and cycle hour.
For example, rrfs_a/rrfs.20260114/12 contains the deterministic forecast initialized at 12 UTC on 14 January 2026. Users will find two primary types of output in GRIB2 format. The first is:
rrfs.t12z.natlev.3km.f018.na.grib2
Meaning that this is the RRFS initialized at 12 UTC, covers the full North America domain, and is the native level post-processed gridded data at hour 18. This output is on a rotated latitude-longitude grid at 3 km grid spacing.
The second output file in grib2 format is:
rrfs.t12z.prslev.3km.f018.conus.grib2
The “prslev” descriptor indicates that this post-processed gridded data is output on pressure levels. The “conus” descriptor indicates that it covers the contiguous United States
For users interested in other domains, output is provided on the full 3-km North American grid and also for subset over Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The files are identified as follows:
North America: rrfs.t00z.prslev.3km.f002.na.grib2 Alaska: rrfs.t00z.prslev.3km.f002.ak.grib2 Hawaii: rrfs.t00z.prslev.2p5km.f002.hi.grib2 Puerto Rico: rrfs.t00z.prslev.2p5km.f002.pr.grib2
We also provide prototype RRFSv1 ensemble output and products. Output is available for 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC cycles, and is organized by cycle date and cycle hour. For example, rrfs_a/rrfsens.20260115/00/m001 contains the forecast from member 1, and rrfs_a/refs.20260115/00/enspost_timelag contains the combined ensemble products.
Features and programs
Open Data Sponsorship Program
This dataset is part of the Open Data Sponsorship Program, an AWS program that covers the cost of storage for publicly available high-value cloud-optimized datasets.
Pricing
This is a publicly available data set. No subscription is required.
Legal
Content disclaimer
Vendors are responsible for their product descriptions and other product content. AWS does not warrant that vendors' product descriptions or other product content are accurate, complete, reliable, current, or error-free.
Delivery details
AWS Data Exchange (ADX)
AWS Data Exchange is a service that helps AWS easily share and manage data entitlements from other organizations at scale.
Open data resources
Available with or without an AWS account.
- How to use
- To access these resources, reference the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) using the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). Learn more
- Description
- Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) Data
- Resource type
- S3 bucket
- Amazon Resource Name (ARN)
- arn:aws:s3:::noaa-rrfs-pds
- AWS region
- us-east-1
- AWS CLI access (No AWS account required)
- aws s3 ls --no-sign-request s3://noaa-rrfs-pds/
- Description
- New data notifications for RRFS, only Lambda and SQS protocols allowed
- Resource type
- SNS topic
- Amazon Resource Name (ARN)
- arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:709902155096:NewRRFSObject
- AWS region
- us-east-1
Resources
Vendor resources
Support
Contact
For any questions regarding data delivery or any general questions regarding the NOAA Open Data Dissemination (NODD) Program, email the NODD Team at nodd@noaa.gov .
We also seek to identify case studies on how NOAA data is being used and will be featuring those stories in joint publications and in upcoming events. If you are interested in seeing your story highlighted, please share it with the NODD team by emailing nodd@noaa.gov
Managed By
How to cite
NOAA Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) [Prototype] was accessed on DATE from https://registry.opendata.aws/noaa-rrfs .
License
NOAA data disseminated through NODD is made available under the [Creative Commons 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication (CC0-1.0) license](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=chooser-v1 ), which is well-known and internationally recognized. There are no restrictions on the use of the data. The data are open to the public and can be used as desired.
NOAA has adopted the Creative Commons license to ensure maximum use of our data, to spur and encourage exploration and innovation throughout the industry. This license is applicable to each of the NOAA datasets made available by NODD. NOAA requests attribution for the use or dissemination of unaltered NOAA data. However, it is not permissible to state or imply endorsement by or affiliation with NOAA. If you modify NOAA data, you may not state or imply that it is original, unaltered NOAA data.
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