NCEP Modeling Synergy Meeting Highlights October 31, 2005

This meeting was led by Peter Manousos, attended by Geoff Dimego, John Ward, Dave Plummer, Jim Hoke, Mary Hart, Keith Brill, Steve Lord, Ed Danaher, Joe Sienciewicz, Desiraju B. Rao, Bill Bua and attended remotely by Stephen Jascourt.

1. CCS

John Ward reported that NEXRAD Level 2 winds will begin to be processed operationally starting the first week in November. This will allow real-time testing and eventual use in the NAM replacing its current use of Level 2.5 winds which went into
NAM with the final Eta bundle. Additionally the 10 member ensemble wave model will be running in parallel. Pending evaluation results, 6 WRF members will be added to SREF Dec 6. The CCS “White” upgrade is still pending (service pack for operating system – the same upgrade that was performed on “Blue”). The CCS will be upgraded by the end of 2006.

2. NOTES FROM EMC

2a. Global Modeling Branch: Steve Lord reported the GSI upgrade continues. It is “very fast” but is not yet ready for evaluation.

2b. Mesoscale Modeling Branch (MMB): Geoff DiMego reported that most efforts are currently focused on transition to WRF (see previous meeting highlights for details). Specifically, efforts are focused on mitigating the nighttime cold bias (surface exchange coefficients under night time conditions and clouds). Once this is complete, tuning of clouds effects on radiation will also be needed to mitigate the resulting warm bias during the day. On a side note, it is not certain running WRF at 12km will “fit” in the same processing slot as the current Eta 12km slot because the WRF infrastructure slows the NMM model enough to cause the runs to take longer or require more nodes than the current NAM. Therefore some alternatives may need to be explored.

2c. Global Ensemble Prediction System: Steve Lord reported the next upgrade is still intended for late March 2006 (see previous highlights for upgrade specifics). At this time the upgrade will include an additional 4 members with the possibility for more. The satellite upgrade to GDAS was causing inferior performance for tropical systems and therefore has been postponed until November 8 (held off because of Wilma).

2d. Short Range Ensemble Prediction System: Geoff Dimego reported the SREF system is awaiting evaluation to implement additional 6 members (WRF). Geoff also pointed out that the WRF and RSM members will run at 40km res and the Eta members at 32km res. However, output from ALL members will be posted at 40km res. Additionally, a goal is to have all members run concurrently – that is, all members will run out to the same forecast hour by the same time. This will allow SREF statistical products to be produced more quickly as opposed to the current scheme where all members have to run to forecast hour 87 before statistical fields can be calculated.

2e. Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch (MMAB): D. B. reported HYCOM (Atlantic Basin) is intended for implementation Dec 13. Larry Burroughs added (through email)

HYCOM is the first of a series of regional Real Time Ocean Forecast Systems (RTOFS) to be readied for implementation. HYCOM, together with a global RTOFS, will eventually supply boundary conditions to all the regional RTOFS.  The RTOFS (Atlantic) will replace the current Regional Ocean Forecast System, which is based on the Princeton Ocean Model. Additionally MMAB has been requested to ready the recently implemented wave steepness product for use in AWIPS.  It currently is a graphic product on NAWIPS only.  In order to prepare the product for AWIPS, a GRIB2 file has to be created and bulletin headers requested.  At the moment, it is not certain which AWIPS build will first allow forecasters to view this data. However, the     requirement has been formally submitted (week of Oct 24).

3. Input to EMC and NCO.

None reported.

4. The next meeting will be held Monday Nov. 28, 2005 at noon in room 209 with remote conference capability.