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Bridges to Operations: MET Collaboration

Spring 2020

The NOAA Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) and the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) are currently collaborating on using the Model Evaluation Tools (MET) for the verification and validation of EMC’s suite of environmental prediction models, such as the Global Forecast System (GFS), the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS), and the Rapid Refresh (RAP)/High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR). Both centers are currently working towards creating an operational configuration of MET that can be implemented on NOAA’s Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputer (WCOSS) to be used in real-time within a 7x24x365 operational environment. 

To that end, EMC and DTC have worked with NCEP Central Operations (NCO) to install METplus 2.1 and MET 8.1 on the developmental component of WCOSS to test and optimize the software system, with the eventual goal of installing METplus 3.0 and MET 9.0 into real-time operations in calendar year 2020. Once installed, the software will enable EMC to create a suite of real-time verification systems that will provide statistics on EMC model performance to both internal and external customers. Additionally, the real-time verification statistics will also be used to create graphics and displays with a cloud-based METViewer and METExpress user interface.

Image created using METplus for the GFSv15 vs GFSv16 500mb anomaly correlation comparison.
Contributed by Jason Levit