2023-08-01 | 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 METdataio, METcalcpy, and METplotpy as shared packages for loading and storing MET output as well as aggregating and… Read More

Spring 2023 | The Hurricane Analysis and Prediction System (HAFS) v1 has been approved for operational implementation for the 2023 hurricane season by NOAA NCEP and, with it, the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) will be deployed operationally for the first time. This is a major milestone for this software infrastructure. The first set of requirements for the CCPP was established in 2017, following… Read More

Spring 2023 | The DTC serves a vital role in advancing NOAA’s modeling efforts and the community-based Unified Forecasting System (UFS). The DTC is research to operations (R20) and operations to research (O2R) in action. Through model evaluations and support to the community, the impact of the DTC in the delivery of new… Read More

Spring 2023 | Xia Sun is a numerical weather prediction (NWP) scientist working at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder (CIRES) and NOAA Global Systems Laboratory. Xia works on hierarchical system development for the Unified Forecast System (UFS) and MYNN-EDMF planetary boundary layer (PBL) physics scheme. Before that, Xia lived in Reno, Nevada for three and… Read More

Spring 2023 | The initial operational implementation of the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS) for tropical cyclone (TC) forecasting was recently approved for operations by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO) in advance of the 2023 Atlantic basin hurricane season. HAFS is the operational instantiation of the Unified Forecast System (UFS) hurricane application, with a focus on transitioning TC modeling research to operations. HAFS is an… Read More

Spring 2023 | As the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) heads toward operational status within NOAA’s numerical weather prediction (NWP) advancement efforts, the community that helped make it a reality will gather virtually alongside the “CCPP-curious” for the CCPP Visioning Workshop on August 15-17 to discuss plans for its continued improvement over the next 5-10 years. A strong emphasis for the workshop will be placed on accommodating the software coupling needs of the next generation of… Read More

Spring 2023 | The METplus team offered three sessions of an advanced training series during Spring 2023 and plans to add three to four new sessions during Fall 2023. The intent was to extend beyond the Basic Training Series provided during the winter and spring of 2021/2022. The recorded Basic series and report about the sessions can be found at METplus Training Series… Read More

2023-05-17 | John Opatz is an Associate Scientist III in RAL at NCAR contributing his expertise to two DTC projects: the Enhanced Model Evaluation Tools (METplus) and METplus training. John is highly skilled and the go-to scientist for reviewing Pull Requests across METplus repositories. He made 210 METplus GitHub contributions in 2022, defining new issues, committing code changes, updating documentation, and reviewing the work of others. John’s Pull Request reviews are detailed, thoughtful, and comprehensive. He often expands his… Read More