NCEP Synergy Meeting Highlights: January
5, 2009
This meeting was led by Bill Bua and
attended by Chris Magee, Keith Brill, John Ward, Geoff DiMego, and John Derber.
Stephen Jascourt, Steve Silberberg of AWC, Steve Weiss of SPC, Richard Pasch of
HPC, Dave Novak and Jeff Waldstreicher (Eastern Region), Dave Myrick and Andy
Edman (Western Region), Bill Ward (Pacific Region), and Carven Scott (Alaska
Region) attended by remote teleconference.
Checkers: Please pay particular attention to highlighted items.
Pre-NCEP centers reports:
Attention was brought to an
item from the NCEP 2008 Annual Model Review, to change the meeting time to
something later than noon, to accommodate the regions in the western CONUS and
OCONUS. The main purpose would be to allow all
regions to participate, especially with respect to pending implementations.
Some thought a decision had been made at the meeting to change the time to 3 pm
ET the last Monday of the month, but not all were aware of this. Bill Bua took an action to get agreement on a
new day and time that would maximize participation by all.
1. NCO
Chris
McGee of NCO reported that the
We
are in a moratorium generally until the new IBM Cirrus 6 is installed; earliest
lifting of the moratorium is April 2009.
2. NOTES FROM EMC
2a.
Global Climate and Weather Modeling Branch
A
new physics package for the GFS is ready for testing with the goal of
implementing prior to the 2009 hurricane season. The GCWMB also hopes to implement a more
significant GFS change late in 2009. The
Climate side of the shop is (and will be) running the GFS reanalysis/reforecast
on the Power 5.
2b.
Mesoscale Modeling Branch
NAM-WRF:
A
small bug in the code just implemented related to the LSM and initialization of
snow cover, has been found and will be fixed upon the return of Eric
Rogers. As noted by NCO, the
implementation of
No
major changes will be made for the remainder of 2009, as the MMB concentrates
on changing to the NEMS modeling framework.
A GSI upgrade may be done in Fall 2009 if necessary, which may include a
change to the balance constraint if a consistently better formulation can be
found.
2c.
Global Ensemble Prediction System
No
report.
2d.
Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (Data Assimilation) System
No
report.
2e.
No
report.
2f.
Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch
No
report.
3. FEEDBACK FROM OPERATIONAL CENTERS/REGIONS
Western
Region (Andy
Edman) reported that the GFS recently has been struggling/flip-flopping on
western
NHC
(Richard
Pasch) reported that they are aware of the web pages for the upcoming GFS/GSI
implementation performance on hurricanes.
NHC will review these and give feedback.
He asked and was tentatively granted an extension on the GFS/GSI
evaluation until mid-to-late February because the holiday period slowed down
review.
General
discussion:
Case
study reruns: John Ward said such runs would
take several months to perform as part of an evaluation of a parallel, because
of the data cycling/data assimilation issues and computer availability, so it
may not be feasible at present.
30-day
evaluation periods: Internal briefing to the
Change Control Board (CCB) would be made available to the evaluators to assist
them in knowing
It
was suggested that a link be provided to a website containing real-time
forecasts and any cases that have been rerun.
It
was noted that not having the parallel in AWIPS is an inhibiting factor in
having WFOs participate in parallel evaluations; ways to remove that impediment
should be examined.
4. The next Synergy Meeting will be
held at a time to be determined by the expanded Synergy Group, per initial
discussion at the 5 January 2009 meeting. E-mail will be sent once the time is
determined.