Summer 2020 | The community aspect of NOAA’s Unified Forecast System (UFS) is off to a strong start with the release of the UFS Medium-Range Weather Application v1.0 on 11 March 2020. The planning and preparations for this release were truly a community effort that convened a multi-institutional team of scientists and software engineers from NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), NOAA research laboratories (Global Systems Laboratory [GSL], National Severe Storms Laboratory [NSSL], Physical… Read More
Director's Corner: Community Modeling and the Transition from Research to Operations and Operations to Research
Jim Kinter
Summer 2020 | This is an exciting era in Earth system prediction research and operational forecasting. Researchers are gaining access to a powerful set of tools that are deployed or soon to be used to produce the nation’s weather forecasts, climate outlooks, and more. Operational forecasters are gaining more direct access to the latest breakthroughs and innovations in modeling and prediction research. Here’s why I am so enthusiastic. … Read More
Who's Who: Lindsay Blank
Summer 2020 | Lindsay Blank joined the DTC as an Associate Scientist in January 2018; this is her first career position in the field after completing school. She grew up in the D.C. area of Maryland, and earned her B.S. in Meteorology and B.S. in Computer Science at Millersville University in Millersville, Pennsylvania. Her Computer Science degree was added in her junior year of college after interning at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Oklahoma where she was introduced to numerical… Read More
Bridges to Operations: CCPP Framework
Summer 2020 | The Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) is a library of physical parameterizations distributed with a framework that enables its use in any host model that incorporates CCPP into their own structure. CCPP is currently used with NOAA’s Unified Forecast System (UFS) for experimental subseasonal-to-seasonal, medium- and short-range weather, air quality, and hurricane applications, with all physics development for the UFS transitioned to CCPP. The CCPP framework was originally developed by DTC, and is now being co-… Read More
Visitors: The impacts of including aerosols in the radiance observation operator on analysis using GSI
Visitor: Shih-Wei Wei
Summer 2020 | Background The Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) is a variational data assimilation system (DAS) used by several operational centers. GSI is used by NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5), as well as NOAA’s Global Forecast… Read More
Did you know?: Community Workflow for the Limited Area Model Version of the FV3
Summer 2020 | A workflow enabling users to run the atmospheric component of the Unified Forecast System regional configuration (FV3-LAM) in an end-to-end capacity will soon be available to the broader community. This community workflow is the result of a coordinated effort between EMC, GSL, and DTC. Components of the workflow include experiment generation, Rocoto XML file generation, and the scripts necessary to run pre-processing, model integration, and post- processing. Collaboration across multiple labs fostered the development of… Read More
Lead Story: In Memoriam: Bill Lapenta
Spring 2020 | The DTC community mourns the passing of William “Bill” Lapenta, Ph.D. Bill was the Acting Director of NOAA’s Office of Weather and Air Quality (OWAQ) within NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research that supports world-class weather and air quality research. He was also the guiding force and energy behind the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) with the goal to launch the U.S. forward as the world leader in numerical weather prediction through public-academic-private partnerships. He was committed to conquering the… Read More
Director's Corner: A Look Ahead
Dorothy Koch
Spring 2020 | At the National Weather Service’s Office of Science and Technology Integration (OSTI), we’re currently planning milestones for the coming year with our partners. OSTI manages a broad portfolio of research and development efforts designed to improve operational forecast capabilities, and our partners in these efforts are in both the research and operational communities. We aim to understand forecaster priorities, and to communicate operational requirements so that community members can come up with innovative solutions… Read More
Who's Who: LinLin Pan
NOAA
Spring 2020 | LinLin was born into a family of farmers in Southeast China where the weather is dominated by the Asian Monsoon. “I can’t remember how many times my parents sighed gravely in front of the ruined crops because of the wrong prediction of Mei-yu – endless rainy days during the summer. My family would starve in this case.” LinLin was determined to study weather to help farmers, and now he works to make sure severe weather events are forecasted accurately. Diligent and determined, Linlin was accepted into the Department of… Read More
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… Read More
Visitors: Evaluating the Impact of Model Physics on Forecasts of Hurricane Rapid Intensification
Visitor: Jun Zhang
Spring 2020 | Dr. Jun Zhang, a scientist from the University of Miami and visitor to the DTC in 2018, investigated the impact of model physics on the forecast performance of hurricane models for hurricanes undergoing rapid intensification (RI). Accurate predictions of hurricane intensity could significantly reduce the economic loss, especially if a hurricane makes landfall at well-developed coastal regions. Hurricane intensity is influenced not only by environmental factors but also by internal dynamics and thermodynamics. Previous… Read More
Community Connections: Communication and Outreach in the Unified Forecast System
Spring 2020 | The Unified Forecast System (UFS) is a coupled, comprehensive Earth modeling and data assimilation system that will be used in NOAA operations and by the research community. There are naturally a lot of questions about UFS from potential collaborators, for example: What UFS codes are available to run? How do I find out more information about the project, and how can I get involved? One of the roles of the UFS Communication and Outreach Working Group (C&O WG, for short) is to communicate the answers to such questions… Read More
Did you know?: CCPP Framework
Is to be Used for Future Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling at NCAR
Spring 2020 | The Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling laboratory at NCAR has been developing the Model Independent Chemistry Module (MICM) to represent chemical transformations in any atmosphere model. To make this happen, MICM is designed to work with the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) Framework, a software defining how host models access physics parameterizations including chemistry. MICM gathers information on trace gases and chemical reactions from a database (coined the “Chemistry Café”). It then configures… Read More
Announcement: The First Unified Forecast System (UFS) Users’ Workshop To Be Held Virtually
New Deadlines Posted
2020-04-28 | Due to the current situation regarding COVID-19, the first Unified Forecast System (UFS) Users’ Workshop will be held virtually online, from 27-29 July, 2020. The aim of the workshop remains to establish an annual forum to exchange ideas, advance education on applying the UFS, and embrace the full potential of the community to support and help improve the UFS modeling and prediction system. A diverse group of participants from across the weather enterprise are encouraged to participate and engage in this forum, with the… Read More
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