HRRR Explorer
Operational model HIGH-RESOLUTION RAPID REFRESH · 3 KM CONUSWhat am I looking at?
The Rapid Refresh Forecast System is NOAA's next-generation convection-allowing model, running hourly at 3 km over the continental United States. It is being run in parallel with the operational HRRR it is designed to replace, which makes this a rare chance to watch a national forecast model being shaken out in real time.
The timeline under the map carries the whole cycle — 72 frames on a 15-minute axis to 18 hours — with a UTC tick strip reading the valid time of the frames themselves, so you can jump to an hour rather than count steps. Play at 0.5× to 8×; the setting sticks in this browser, and MP4 and GIF exports come out at the speed you were watching.
Fields here are drawn straight from the raw NCEP GRIB2 output with no smoothing and no rescaling — colour ramps are pinned to absolute values, so a loop shows real intensity changes rather than a palette re-fitting itself each frame. Because RRFS is experimental, treat it as a research tool: for watches, warnings and advisories, the National Weather Service is always the authority.