Scientists at the Illinois State Water Survey have begun a new project that will ultimately improve weather forecasting of severe storms and heatwaves in cities across the United States. In the three-year project with a budget of over $850,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), ISWS will focus on improving weather forecasts for the Chicago, New York, and Denver metro areas using observations from space and from the ground combined with numerical model development. The goal is to study the chemistry, atmosphere, and human adaptive choices that influence storms and heatwaves over cities.