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America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is celebrating the one year anniversary of its Weather-Ready Nation project. Weather experts from across the United States have been working to improve the way the country reacts to extreme weather. They say scientific progress has made weather forecasts, or predictions, better than ever. But, they say the cost of severe weather on life and property is still too high. NOAA says a new generation of equipment has already made its global numerical weather prediction system nearly three times faster in the past seven months. This is expected to improve NOAA's forecast models. Scientists and weather experts have launched a similar effort in the Philippines. It is called Project NOAH -- the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards. Mahar Lagmay is the head of Project NOAH. He says his country needs high-resolution imaging to predict when and where natural disasters will strike. "To be able to construct hazard maps you need very high resolution topography. To do the simulations of floods you do need high resolution topography." He also says these images will be used to create smaller area maps, which will shape how people react to natural disasters. "By doing local scale, or community scale maps, people can relate with the problem because they see their houses, they see their neighbor's houses, the bridge in their community, the river in their community in relation to the hazards - the flood hazards in particular." | 
