NURTURE_2026: North American Upstream Feature-Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment 2026

Summary

NURTURE is a NASA-funded large-scale aircraft field campaign. It will advance knowledge of the processes that lead to extreme high-impact weather (HIW) events during the winter, such as severe cold air outbreaks, windstorms and hazardous seas, snow and ice storms, sea ice breakup, and extreme precipitation. HIW events have significant socioeconomic costs and threaten national security (e.g., destabilizing supply chains and damaging infrastructure). The overarching goal of NURTURE is to quantify the impact that perturbations poleward of the jet stream have on jet stream variability and high-impact weather (HIW) events.NURTURE will emphasize the life cycles of mesoscale and synoptic-scale disturbances of Arctic origin and how their juxtaposition with mid-latitude features creates high-impact weather. It will also target measurements needed to reduce systematic process errors in numerical models within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) and maritime tropospheric regions in the vicinity of features responsible for HIW. The findings of NURTURE will be instrumental in improving the accuracy of numerical weather models and predicting high-impact weather events, thereby enhancing our ability to prepare for and respond to such events. NURTURE will take place in 2026 and 2027 and this project is for the 2026 campaign.