Update on the Regional Modeling System Cliff Mass, David Ovens, Richard Steed, Mark Albright, Phil Regulski, Jeff Baars, David Carey

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Update on the Regional Modeling SystemCliff
Mass, David Ovens, Richard Steed, Mark Albright,
Phil Regulski, Jeff Baars, David Carey
Northwest Weather Workshop March 3, 2007
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Supported by the Northwest Modeling
Consortiumthe regional modeling effort centered
at the UW is

• Running the MM5 at 36, 12, and 4 km resolution
• Running the new WRF model at 36, 12 km resolution
• Running TWO high resolution regional ensemble
  systems to provide probabilistic forecasts and
  data assimilation
• Gathering all local weather observations from
  dozens of networks. Plus quality control.
• Running a wide range of weather applications
  dealing with air quality, hydrology,
  transportation weather and fire weather.

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36 km
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12 km
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4 km
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A Few of the Major Efforts and Improvements this
Year
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Evaluation of WRF

• WRF the Weather Research and Forecasting Model,
  is the replacement for the MM5 and should be the
  national mesoscale model used by both the
  operational and research community.
• On paper a far better modelbut it will take time
  for all the bugs to removed and to regain all of
  the same capabilities.
• We are now running it at 36 and 12 km grid
  spacing, and will be replacing the current test
  version with the newest version with major
  physics improvements and nudging on the outer
  domain.

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Evaluation

• We will evaluate the new real-time WRF this
  spring and for major historical cases.
• If equal or superior, the modeling consortium
  will probably ok the shift from MM5 to WRF.
• Evaluations of old version show differences but
  not superiority.

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Example of MM5 vs WRF Verifications
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March 1 Convergence Zone Event
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The Model Suggested Lowland Snow
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The UW Quality Control System

• A major task continues to be the gathering of all
  real-time observations of the region into one
  place
• Right now we acquire over 60 networks in real
  time for displaying on our web site,
  verification, and many other uses
• But how does one remove bad data in the massive
  amount of information we gather?

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The Answer The UW Quality Control and Warning
System

• We have developed an advanced QC system suitable
  for an area of complex terrain (Jeff Baars)
• We have developed an automated QC display system
  that one can check on the web and which can
  automatically tell the manager of a network when
  their data is suspect (David Carey)

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Direction QC
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Map Selection Interface

• We have a new map interface for getting
  soundings, time height cross sections and
  meteograms at ANY location.
• Done by Phil Regulski

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Local Data Assimilation

• A major new effort has begun to assimilate all
  local observations to create a physically
  consistent three dimensional picture of the
  regional atmosphere.
• Needed for many reasonsincluding better
  short-term forecasts and air quality studies.
• The approach makes use of a 90-member ensemble
  system--Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF)--probably
  the best approach possible for using the forecast
  model to use local observations

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Local Data Assimilation

• It will actually produce 90 different analyses
  that be combined to produce the best guess at
  what is there and tell us the uncertainty in the
  analyses.
• These analyses can be integrated forward in time
  to give us probabilistic predictions of the
  future
• We now have it running at 36 and 12 km
  resolutionmore this year!

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Weather Radar on the Washington Coast Our Time
May Have Come!
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Now
With Two New Radars
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The Year

• More interest among WA Congressmen and Senators
• More power in NW delegation due to changes in
  Congress
• Local communities along the coast are interested
  and lobbying
• Local meteorologists should write and email and
  use their influence.

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The END