7th NCEP Ensemble Users Workshop

The 7th NCEP Ensemble Users Workshop was held at NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP) in College Park, Maryland during the period June 13-15, 2016. The purpose of the workshop was (i) to bring together experts and users involved in the generation and use of NCEP ensembles, (ii) to review progress on the generation and use of operational products since our last meeting in March 2014, and (iii) to discuss plans for future efforts and collaborations. The main goal of the workshop was to support NWS in its transition from single value to probabilistic forecasting. The ultimate goal was to convey forecast uncertainty in a user-relevant form. Collaborative efforts on the national (NUOPC, DTC) and international (NAEFS, NMME) scale were also discussed.

The workshop was organized by the NCEP Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) jointly with the NCAR Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) whose goal is to facilitate the future testing and transition of newly developed methods into operations, with support from the Office of Science and Technology Integration (OSTI) of NWS.

The themes included:

1. Current state and plan of operational ensembles and products
   1. What is the current state of operational ensembles? The reviews include all scales and downstream applications, such as regional, global, climate, wave/surge, hydrological, hurricane and etc …
   2. What products and guidance are available to users? The reviews include the products from NCEP UPP, NAEFS SPP, SREF post products (and others) for public, NBP for NWS and etc…
2. User requirements and future plans
   1. How are ensembles currently used by broader users? The reviews include NCEP centers, NWC, fields (regions and WFO/RFC), private sectors and etc…
   2. What are the evidence-based requirements for future ensemble generations? Those include future storm scale ensemble, week 3&4 global ensemble and others.
   3. How can we work together to fulfill those requirements within operational limitations? This includes the reviews of UMAC’s recommendations, plan of NGGPS, ensemble post-processing, plan for reanalysis/reforecast and others.
   4. How can we improve our services for broader users? Those will cover data distribution, product generation, product visualization, forecast verification and others.
3. Encourage national/international community participation and cooperation
   1. How do we engage the community to encourage external model development and facilitate research-to-operations (and operations-to-research)? This includes the discussions from NCAR/DTC, NGGPS project, MMAP project, NMME, NOAA testbeds and others.
   2. How can external developers make the R2O process easier, making it more likely their work will be incorporated operationally?
   3. How can we enhance national cooperation through various projects? This includes ESPC/NUOPC, NMME and others.
   4. How can different nations increase cooperation to improve (combined) ensemble products and future development? This includes experiences sharing from NAEFS, NMME, many foreign national centers (and institutions).