JEFS Status Report Department of Atmospheric Sciences University

JEFS Status Report Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Washington Cliff Mass, Jeff Baars, David Carey JEFS Workshop, August 28 -29

Who is working on JEFS at the UW? n Atmospheric Sciences u u n Cliff Mass-main faculty lead Jeff Baars-research scientist David Carey-research scientist Some assistance from other staff Statistics u u Tilmann Gneiting-main faculty lead. Mc. Clean Sloughter-grad student working on precip and wind bma Chris Fraley-staff, software support Some assistance from Adrian Raftery-Prof--Mr. BMA

The Two Basic Requirements for Post Processing of JEFS Forecasts are: Quality controlled observational data for the region of interest of all necessary parameters n Reliable JME grids for several months at least. n

Acquiring and QCing JEFS Obs Data n Not in the Statement of Work (SOW), but a critical requirement for JEFS. n Developed a robust QC system at the UW that has been tested over the last year and recently transferred to AFWA.

UW Observation Quality Control System n n Range Check u A simple gross error check to make sure the observation is within a reasonable range. Step Check u Looks for "spikes" in an station's time series for a given variable. Persistence Check u Looks for variables that are not changing over extended periods, indicative a failed or frozen sensor. Spatial Check u Compares each observation to those of surrounding stations. Specifically, designed to handle areas of complex terrain-like Korea and the NW U. S.

Quality Control Display and Warning System This system is now working on the UW Northwest test bed for a heterogeneous collection of roughly 70 different networks. n View it in real time at: n http: //www. atmos. washington. edu/~qcreport/

JEFS Observations Recently began receiving observations for 3 -, 6 -, and 12 -hr precipitation. u …in addition to temperature, dew point, altimeter, sea level pressure, wind speed and direction. n Now receiving Korean Mesonet Data. n Format of obs still being adjusted… n

Forecast Verification Another major issue is to have forecast verification code running operationally, since that is essential infrastructure for postprocessing. n UW has developed code called “verobs” which is being transferred to AFWA n

UW-to-AFWA Code Transfers for QC and forecast verification n n Observations Quality Control Fortran code transferred to Scott Rentschler at AFWA, March 2007. u AFWA needs to use this software to flag and remove observations from the collection we are receiving. Forecast verification Fortran code, “verobs, ” transferred to Scott Rentschler at AFWA, August 2007.

Next Item: Bias Correction Software Development and Transfer to AFWA n As noted many times in the past, bias correction substantially improves probabilistic prediction since systematic bias does not represent true uncertainty.

Bias Correction of T 2 and TD 2 n Have bias correction running in real-time for 2 -m temperature and 2 -m dew point temperature for the UW Mesoscale Ensemble System (UWME). u Uses optimized settings. u Have gotten this running on the JME/WRF output as well, using “older generation” JME model data. u Results shown at JEFS technical meeting, Sep 2006. u Ready to transfer code to AFWA.

Bias Correction of PCP 12 n Have developed bias correction settings for 12 -hr precipitation for the UWME. u As with T 2 and TD 2, settings were determined through an optimization process. u Removed land use in gridpoint – to – obs matching; using bins for precipitation amount u Included in Weather and Forecasting paper, along with T 2 and TD 2. u Results look good…

Results: Bias Corrected PCP 12, forecast hour 48, 2004 -July to 2005 June, using UWME system Metric Uncorrected Bias Corrected Mean Absolute Error (inches) 0. 060 0. 046 Mean Error (inches) 0. 018 -0. 013 Help Fraction N/A 0. 133 Hurt Fraction N/A 0. 047

Daily Domain Averaged ME for PCP 12, f 48, December 2004 Daily Domain Averaged MAE for PCP 12, f 48, December 2004

Daily Domain Averaged ME for PCP 12, f 48, October 2004 Daily Domain Averaged MAE for PCP 12, f 48, October 2004

Local Bias Correction of DIR 10 and SPD 10 n Currently working on 10 -m winds. u As with T 2 and TD 2, a statistically significant correlation between model error and land use appears to exist, especially for wind speed.

Next Issue: Transferring BMA to AFWA n n Local BMA for temperature is now working operationally over the Northwest and is ready to be transferred to AFWA. FORTRAN Code. Same approach can be used for dew point temperature. Global BMA is working for precipitation. Currently written in “r” and must be converted to FORTRAN before it can be transferred to AFWA (Jeff Baars is doing this now). Local BMA for precipitation and BMA for wind has been an area of active work between atmos sci and statistic and prototypes are working, but still being improved and evaluated. The next talk will describe this more.

We have continued to maintain and improve PROBCAST Probcast is our attempt to package uncertainty data in a form accessible to laymen and less experienced forecasters. n A version of probcast will be adapted for DOD use when the underlying JEFS system is in place. n Are now extending the verification of Probcast over the NW. n

Before Probcast: The BMA Site

PROBCAST

Verification of Probcast temperatures web tool

Next: Mc. Clean Sloughter, UW Statistics