Monthly Report

of the WRF Program Coordinator

to

Executive Oversight Board

 

November 2005

 

 

1.                  WRF Model Implementation:

 

·        Next WRF operational implementations:

(a)                NCEP – The expanded 21-member multi-model Short Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF) system with 6 WRF members has been approved to become operational in December (1Q) 2005.  SREF will be the 2nd operational system at NCEP to use both WRF dynamical cores and physics suites.  WRF members have introduced broader spread in the ensemble and have resulted in higher skill in the ensemble scores.

(b)                AFWA – Extended Operational Tests of the WRF-ARW are proceeding well.  Preparations for AFWA’s initial operational implementation of WRF-ARW in its classified domains remain on track for March 2006.

 

·        NCEP’s implementation of the North American Mesoscale (NAM) WRF-NMM in March 2006 remains on track.  Computational performance of the model on the NAM domain has been improved significantly in the past month.  Testing continues to focus on improving the balance among physical processes.

 

·        With important assistance from NCAR on software configurations, AFWA is running and evaluating performance of WRF-ARW versus its operational MM5 system for 10 Pacific tropical cyclones as part of its retrospective testing leading up to implementation of WRF.

 

 

2.                  Community Support and Outreach:

 

·        Release of WRF Reference Code:   NCAR released WRF version 2.1.1 code on November 11, 2005.  The new release contains both WRF-ARW and WRF-NMM versions and a number of upgrades and bugfixes.

 

·        WRF tutorials:            Two upcoming winter tutorials are scheduled:  a WRF-ARW tutorial is planned for January 2006 and a WRF-NMM tutorial for February 2006.  Exploratory discussions are being held with the objective of coordinating and eventually merging the tutorials.

 

 

 

 

3.                  WRF Software Development and Evaluations

 

·        NCEP Hurricane-WRF:        Development of a two-way interface for moveable nested grids in the WRF-NMM has continued in November.  Hurricane-WRF remains on track for operational implementation in FY07.

 

·        NCAR WRF-ARW for Hurricanes: NCAR is conducting evaluations of its hurricane simulations performed during the 2005 hurricane season.  The tests used a vortex-following nested-grid configuration of WRF-ARW with a 4-km inner domain.  Recent results from WRF-ARW simulations of Hurricane Wilma are available at http://www.rap.ucar.edu/~bwb/wilma-2005/

 

·        NCAR has developed a channel-model configuration of WRF-ARW in which the northern and southern boundaries can be imposed or driven by analyses.  The channel model version will be used to run multi-year nested WRF-ARW simulations of regional climate.  The regional climate work is part of a global WRF-ARW development effort being undertaken by NCAR.

 

·        AFWA is testing the value added by assimilation of observations from Global Hawk Weather Scout UAVs in WRF-ARW runs.  For these tests, the UAV obs are applied in the inner grid of a moveable nested domain that uses the NCAR auto-vortex following capability.  NCAR has provided critical help in preparing model codes for the assimilation tests.

 

·        Under the Battlespace Environments Institute (BEI) sponsored by AFWA, benchmarking and optimization of WRF-ARW is being done by NCAR and hardware vendor personnel.  AFWA has obtained additional funding for ARW software optimization work from the DoD HPC Modernization Program Office, to be carried out by Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

 

·        NCAR is evaluating results obtained from its WRF-ARW during the NSSL/SPC 2005 Spring Forecast Experiment.  Improvements in the WSM6 microphysics and HRLDAS land surface moisture assimilation appear to have been important for improving representation of convective system structure, timing and location in 4-km ARW forecasts in 2005 versus 2004.  Evaluations are ongoing.

 

4.                  WRF Management

 

·        The next meeting of the WRF Executive Oversight Board is scheduled for January 5, 2005, at NCAR.  Logistical information for meeting attendees will be distributed very soon.

 

·        WRF - ESMF convergence:  Planning continues to move ahead for a WRF-ESMF technical workshop on convergence strategies, expected to be held in February 2006.  The workshop will be at NCAR and a final date is close to selection.

 

 

5.                  DTC – OTC

 

·        DTC FY06 Task Plan:            The Boulder DTC nodes have developed their coordinated FY06 Task Plan, based on available resources and prioritization of proposed DTC activities provided by the DTC Advisory Board and DTC sponsors.

 

·        Terrain-Induced Rotor Experiment (TREX):           NRL-MRY DTC, NCAR-DTC and ARL are coordinating plans for participation in the spring 2006 TREX over Owens Valley, CA.  NRL plans to run near-real-time forecasts of COAMPS at 3-km and ARL is exploring the possibility of running WRF-ARW on a 1 km grid.  ARL also hopes to investigate diurnal evolution of surface and PBL characteristics, especially during stable nocturnal conditions, using TREX cases.

 

 

6.                  WRF and COPC

 

·        Following review by the Joint Action Groups for Operational Community Modeling and Central Communications Management, the WRF Joint Implementation Plan has been forwarded for formal review by COPC’s Committee for Support and Backup (CSAB).

 

 

7.                  WRF and Air Quality Forecasting

 

·        CMAQ-WRF-NMM:  Peer review of the FY06 air-quality forecast system development plan in October endorsed tasks to adapt the numerics of CMAQ to align closely with those of WRF-NMM.  Additional changes will introduce more of the WRF-NMM meteorological fields into CMAQ to better align the physics of the two models.  These measures should improve AQ forecast accuracy and reduce mass imbalances found in the existing CMAQ-Eta system.

 

 

 

 

Glossary of WRF Acronyms

6 June 2005

 

 

AFWA Air Force Weather Agency

AIP                  Agreement In Principle

AO                  Announcement of Opportunity

ARL                Army Research Laboratory

AWRP                        FAA’s Aviation Weather Research Program

BAMEX         Bow Echo And MCV Experiment

COAMPS       Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction SystemTM

COMET         Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training

CONUS          CONtinental United States

COPC             Committee for Operational Processing Centers

DTC                Development Testbed Center

DWFE             DTC Winter Forecast Experiment

ESMF             Earth System Modeling Framework

ESRL              Earth System Research Laboratory

ExOB              Executive Oversight Board

FSL                 Forecast Systems Laboratory

FTE                 Full-Time Equivalent

FNMOC         Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center

GFS                 NCEP Global Forecast System

GSD                Global Systems Division of ESRL, formerly FSL

GSI                 Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation

JCSDA           Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation

MCV               Mesoscale Convective Vortex

MMM                        NCAR Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology division

NAM              NCEP North American Mesoscale domain

NCAR             National Center for Atmospheric Research

NCEP              National Center for Environmental Predictions

NCOM           Navy Coupled Ocean Model

NOGAPS        Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System

NOAA             National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NRL                Naval Research Laboratory

NSSL              National Severe Storms Laboratory

NWS               National Weather Service

OAR               NOAA/Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research

OST                NWS/Office of Science and Technology

OTC                Operational Testbed Center

POP                 Princeton Ocean Prediction model

QPF                 Quantitative Precipitation Forecast

RAMS                        Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System

RR                  Rapid Refresh version of WRF

RUC                Rapid Update Cycle

RTVS              Real Time Verification System

SPC                 NCEP Storm Prediction Center

SREF              Short Range Ensemble Forecast

TOR                Terms of Reference

USWRP          US Weather Research Program

WRF               Weather Research and Forecast modeling system and program

WRF-ARW    WRF Advanced Research WRF dynamical core

WJIP               WRF Joint Implementation Plan of COPC

WRF-NMM   WRF Nonhydrostatic Mesoscale Model dynamical core

WRF-SI          WRF Standard Initialization