2024-11-12 | Evelyn Grell is an Associate Scientist with the University of Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. She plays a key role in the DTC Unified Forecast System Physics Testing and Evaluation project and contributes to other projects outside of the DTC. As the sole DTC staff member from NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, Evelyn exemplifies an inspiring work ethic and possesses exceptional talent. Her contributions benefit not only the DTC… Read More

Autumn 2024 | The DTC community mourns the passing of Tara Jensen this past September. Tara joined the DTC in December of 2008, eleven months after the initial release of the Model Evaluation Tools (MET), a verification software package developed and supported by the DTC. Over the next six years, Tara contributed to a variety of DTC projects, ranging from collaborations with two other NOAA Testbeds (i.e., the Hydrometeorology and Hazardous Weather Testbeds) to internal projects focused on mesoscale and ensemble model evaluations.… Read More

Autumn 2024 | In May 2024, the DTC lost a major contributor and developer. Randy Bullock was a brilliant mathematician and software developer who was instrumental in the creation of tools used by countless DTC visitors and staff, as well as the worldwide community of METplus users. The DTC would like to note our sadness in losing Randy as a colleague and simultaneously celebrate Randy’s contributions, which were extensive.  … Read More

Autumn 2024 | Randy was a founding member of the METplus team and the primary developer of the Method for Object-based Diagnostic Evaluation (MODE) tool that has become so incredibly popular within the verification community. Randy retired in 2020 just as COVID was settling in and causing chaos in our world. Once the doors to NCAR opened again, he came back to the office as a casual employee to work through problems when the team needed his support and expertise. We lost Randy and all of the talent he brought to our mission on May 27… Read More

Autumn 2024 | Over the sixteen years the Method for Object-Based Diagnostic Evaluation (MODE) tool has been available within the Model Evaluation Tools (MET), operational forecasting centers have explored its utility for informing the model development process and evaluating operational products in meaningful ways. Through this exploration, MODE has provided insightful information for operational implementation decisions and meaningful data about the performance of operational products. MODE has been applied to many different… Read More

Autumn 2024 | The Method for Object-based Diagnostic Evaluation, commonly referred to as MODE, was originally developed to address the skill of forecasts of localized episodic phenomena such as rainfall (Davis et al 2006). The inclusion of this technique in the initial release of the Model Evaluation Tools (MET), the verification package developed and supported by the DTC, in 2008 has led to the exploration of an ever broadening application space for this useful tool. In 2009, the DTC collaborated with the NOAA Hydrometeorology… Read More

Autumn 2024 | The Method for Object-based Diagnostic Evaluation (MODE), which was originally developed to work with a single forecast and observation input, has been extended to accommodate multiple inputs, known as Multivariate MODE (MvMODE). This extension was first conceptualized to analyze complex objects such as dry lines. MvMODE has been adapted to identify and assess blizzard-like features, aimed at enhancing feature-driven evaluations of high-impact hydrometeorological events. In addition,… Read More

2024-09-10 | The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is pleased to announce the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) v7.0.0 public release on September 9, 2024. This release contains the CCPP Physics, a library of physical parameterizations, the CCPP Framework, an infrastructure that connects the physics to host models, and the CCPP Single-Column Model (SCM), a simple host model that employs the CCPP Physics and CCPP Framework. Additional information and access to the code can be found here. The CCPP Physics is envisioned to… Read More

2024-08-22 | Tara Jensen is a Project Manager III with the NSF NCAR Research Applications Laboratory who serves as the project manager for the METplus project, co-leads the DTC METplus work — split across NCAR and NOAA nodes, and is also the NCAR Principal Investigator for the majority of the lines of funding that comprise it. The impact of Tara's contributions to the success of the DTC cannot be overstated. Tara’s initial… Read More