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Dear Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) community,
It’s hard to believe that it’s been six months since we held our December 2024 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) PMP Partnership Meeting!
Our team has been working hard to bring the vision of a modernized PMP to reality, and we are incredibly grateful for your support and interest in this work. We’re excited to share some of our accomplishments since December 2024, along with a roadmap for the next 3-6 months.
Accomplishments: January - June 2025
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Extreme Precipitation Event Case Study webpages are being developed which will host analyses of many events that determine PMP currently and may be of interest for updating future PMP. These webpages address several of the short-term recommendations from the NASEM Report, and we expect these webpages to go live by September 2025.
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Several papers have been submitted, accepted, and published documenting the representation of extreme precipitation in key NOAA datasets (e.g., James et al. 2025).
- Development and evaluation work remains ongoing for new experimental high-resolution, rapidly updating NOAA models that will also be leveraged for producing extended reforecast datasets to serve both modernizing PMP and the broader extreme precipitation-interested community.
- NOAA approved the use of IIJA PMP funding to support a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine workshop on orographic extreme precipitation.
- Partnership with US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to inventory, preserve, and make accessible historical data, analyses, maps, and records of extreme storm rainfall events used to estimate PMP.
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Partnership with the National Centers of Environmental Information (NCEI) to support user engagement strategy and implementation through summer 2026.
Roadmap: July - December 2025
- Develop a partnership engagement strategy and identify opportunities for co-engagement with other extreme precipitation products (e.g., NOAA Atlas 15).
- Begin implementing partner engagement to inform the early stages of PMP definition and development.
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Begin developing an implementation plan that will guide NOAA’s approach to implementing the recommendations in the NASEM Report.
Operational updates
We appreciate your ongoing support and patience as we navigate many changes across NOAA and our partner organizations who share our collective goal of modernizing PMP for the nation.
As you may know, federal agencies are undergoing a comprehensive review of activities, projects, and personnel to ensure all initiatives align with the current administration’s priorities. This process has resulted in some unexpected changes to the NOAA PMP team to which we are adjusting.
In addition, the modernization of PMP was codified in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law / Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (BIL/IIJA) and the Providing Research and Estimates of Changes in Precipitation (PRECIP) Act. Funding was provided through the BIL/IIJA to begin the process of modernization; that funding is anticipated through September 2026. However, the timeline for developing PMP lasts through 2030, and it is unclear at this time what appropriations may be available to fill the gap when BIL/IIJA funding ends.
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