Software Release: UPP V11.0.0 Release

2022-06-15 | This release represents a major effort to refactor the UPP code to implement a 2-Dimensional decomposition capability.  This development was led by UPP developers at NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) with funding through the Hurricane Supplemental funding line.  Please see the Users Guide in links below for details on how to use this capability.   Release Highlights: Capability added to decompose grids in both x- and y-directions. 1D (y-direction only) decomposition is still available. Identical results… Read More

Software Release: UPP V10.1.0 Release

Summer 2022 | The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is pleased to announce the release of the Unified Post Processor Version 10.1.0.  This release can be used in standalone mode and is also the version to be used as the post processor component in the upcoming UFS Short Range Weather (SRW) and Medium Range Weather (MRW) Application releases.   Release Highlights Since the last public release was announced, a number of features have changed, notably: HPC-stack is used for prerequisite NCEPLIBS libraries NEMSIO format is no longer… Read More

Lead Story: The Local Land-Atmosphere Coupling (LoCo) Project

Building Tools and Knowledge to Facilitate R2O and Improved Weather and Climate Prediction

Spring 2022 |   Over the last two decades, the hydrometeorological community has made significant progress identifying, understanding, and quantifying the land-atmosphere (L-A) interactions that influence Earth’s water and energy cycles. Under the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX; https://www.gewex.org) project,… Read More

Director's Corner: The NOAA Testbeds and Proving Grounds: A coordinated effort to transition research to operations, services and applications

Andrea Ray and J.J. Brost

Spring 2022 | The Test Bed and Proving Ground Coordination Committee (TBPGCC, www.testbeds.noaa.gov) is composed of representatives from the 12 NOAA Testbeds (TBs) and Proving Grounds (PGs), including a member from the DTC.

Who's Who: Randy Pierce

Spring 2022 | Randy Pierce is a NOAA partner whose software engineering talent supports METexpress. His software engineering role was inspired by his love of detail, building things, and an early curiosity about engineering. From the beginning, he always had a passion for understanding how things work. He earned a dual bachelor's degree in physics and electrical engineering technology from Colorado State University Pueblo… Read More

Bridges to Operations: Physics Assessments in Support of the Upcoming GFS and GEFS 2024 Implementations

Spring 2022 | The next operational implementations of the Global Forecast System (GFS) and Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) are not scheduled until 2024, but work is underway to code and test a number of upgrades to these modeling systems. While innovations are planned in all aspects of the end-to-end system, the DTC has been particularly involved in supporting the development and improvement of the physics suite as a member of the Unified Forecast System (UFS) Research-to-Operations (R2O)… Read More

Visitors: From Innovations to Operations, the DTC Visitor Program Stimulates Progress

Visitor Program: An Overview

Spring 2022 | Since 2004, one of the hallmarks of the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) has been its visitor program. The DTC Visitor Program provides an opportunity for DTC staff and our operational partners to strengthen ties with the research community, which is critical to the success of the DTC’s mission. It began informally when four scientists were invited to work with us for one month over the summer on a project of their choice. The only stipulation was that it had to be consistent with… Read More

Community Connections: The GeneralIzed Aerosol/chemistry iNTerface (GIANT)

Workshop and Hackathon

Spring 2022 | An Earth System Model (ESM) is a model that represents various domains of the earth, such as atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, etc. A new community effort is underway to devise a method to transfer information easily and consistently between chemistry and aerosol modules, and other components of ESMs. Currently, it is difficult to study and quantify feedbacks of chemistry/aerosol parameterizations on weather and climate because of the structurally diverse ways in which chemistry/aerosols… Read More

Did you know?: New US Council for Interagency Coordination of Meteorological Service

Spring 2022 | In April 2017, the President signed into law the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act. This Act required establishing an Interagency Committee for Advancing Weather Services -- The Interagency Council for Advancing Meteorological Services (ICAMS) meets this requirement. ICAMS serves to improve… Read More

Announcement: 2022 DTC METplus Workshop Registration and Call for Abstracts Open

2022-04-12 | Calling All METplus Enthusiasts! The DTC is hosting the first ever METplus Users Workshop. The goals of the workshop include building the METplus community and empowering users to contribute to the development of and planning for the verification and diagnostic framework. It is planned for 27-29 June 2022 and will be hosted virtually. Participation is free. Here's some pertinent details: Tentative Schedule: Call for Abstracts: 20 April - 20 May Monday, 27 June: 8:30am-2:30pm MT (10:30am-4:30pm ET; 1430-2030 UTC) Tuesday… Read More

Software Release: Containerized NWP System Version 4.0.0 Release

2022-03-29 | The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is pleased to announce the release of version 4.0.0 of their end-to-end containerized numerical weather prediction (NWP) system. These software containers have been established for community use to quickly spin up an NWP forecast system [using the WRF Pre-Processing System (WPS), Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, and Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) data assimilation] that can then be post-processed [using the Unified Post Processor (UPP)] and verified [using… Read More

Software Release: METplus v4.1.0 Coordinated Release

2022-03-15 | The DTC is pleased to announce the release of the multi-component verification framework called the enhanced Model Evaluation Tools (METplus), or METplus. METplus contains a suite of Python wrappers and ancillary scripts to enhance the user's ability to quickly set-up and run MET. METplus also has an analysis suite including METviewer and METexpress user interfaces and METdatadb, METcalcpy, and METplotpy as shared packages for loading and storing MET output as well as aggregating and… Read More

Lead Story: Engaging Forecast Community in UFS Model Development: UFS Forecasters Workshops 2020-21

Winter 2022 | With the advent of the Unified Forecast System (UFS), the operational model development at the National Weather Service (NWS) is increasingly becoming a collective effort that includes contributions from multiple NOAA labs, national agencies, and university research groups. The NWS forecasters are the primary stakeholders of the UFS’ operational forecast products, and therefore, continued engagement with them is important for staying abreast of the real-world performance of the model… Read More

Director's Corner: DTC Transferal of Code, and Certain Tasks and Responsibilities to EPIC

Bill Mahoney

Winter 2022 | The DTC is at an interesting pivot point in its 19-year history as it has the opportunity to redirect  its efforts back to its original imperative  of advanced numerical weather prediction (NWP) testing and evaluation. This opportunity is due to the establishment of the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC). As stated in the DTC charter, “The DTC was initiated in 2003 as a means for the NWP community… Read More

Who's Who: Julie Prestopnik

Winter 2022 | Julie and her older brother grew up in South Florida. She worked her way through high school and part of college as a cashier at Publix Super Markets. She earned her college degree in accounting from the University of Central Florida (UCF). During her college years, she started working for the accounting department at the UCF Foundation, and by her senior year, she had earned a prestigious internship with Coopers and Lybrand. Read More