Summer 2016 | As a DTC Visitor in 2015, Paul Roebber explored an idea for generating ensemble weather predictions known as evolutionary programming (EP). The method relies on a gradually and increasingly restrictive cost function to produce and to evaluate succeeding generations of a population of algorithms until such time as a best ensemble solution is determined based on cross-validation. The approach was developed by Roebber to produce baseline prediction equations equivalent to linear or nonlinear multiple regression… Read More

Summer 2015 | Over the years, the DTC has put in place several mechanisms to facilitate the use of operational models by the general community, mostly by supporting operational codes (for data assimilation, forecasting, postprocessing etc.) and organizing workshops and tutorials. By stimulating the use of operational codes by the research community, composed of universities, NCAR, and government laboratories, several new NWP developments have been transitioned to NCEP operations. However, in spite of the… Read More

Summer 2015 |

Summer 2015 |

Summer 2015 | The hybrid Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF)-Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) data assimilation system was implemented at NCEP for its Global Forecasting System (GFS) in May 2012.

Summer 2015 | As a bridge between the research and operational NWP communities, one of the fundamental purposes of the DTC is to provide the research community access to functionally similar operational environments. Through this effort, promising new NWP techniques from the research community can be transferred more efficiently to an operational environment. One system that is currently under development and in the plans for operational implementation is the North American Mesoscale Rapid Refresh (NAMRR) system. The NAMRR is an… Read More

Winter 2015 | The transition of research advances into operations (abbreviated as R2O), particularly those operations involving numerical weather prediction, satellite meteorology, and severe weather forecasting, has always been a major challenge for the atmospheric science community. With a preeminent mission to facilitate R2O in mind, NOAA and NCAR established the DTC in 2003. Since then, the DTC has worked toward this goal in three specific ways:  by providing community support for operational NWP systems, by performing… Read More

Winter 2015 | The DTC was established a number of years ago to facilitate the transition of new capabilities in weather forecasting from research to operations (R2O), with a focus on the WRF model. Over the years, many things have changed – for example, the DTC now works with multiple sets of code (WRF, GSI, MET, HWRF, and so on) which will soon include global prediction systems – but that fundamental mission remains the same. The DTC accomplishes its goals through strong connections to the operational and research… Read More

Winter 2015 | Ming is one of several DTC scientists with cross-Pacific ties, with early roots in central China (near Xian) and school and work experience in Jiangsu (where his parents live), the Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, Beijing, and the University of Oklahoma, where he earned his PhD in 2005. Since 2007 he has been working at ESRL/GSD in Boulder. One of the go-to people for data assimilation work at the DTC and at GSD with the RAP/HRRR, he is called upon not only for development work on data assimilation… Read More

Winter 2015 | The mission of the DTC is to accelerate the rate of transition of new research and development to operational numerical weather prediction models. To that end, the DTC makes NCEP operational models, such as the Hurricane WRF, available to the general community through yearly releases of stable, well-tested, and well-documented codes, which are supported through a help desk. While the DTC has hundreds of registered HWRF users, only a small subset of them actually contribute innovations, raising questions about the… Read More

Winter 2015 | A successful workshop on Parameterization of Moist Processes for Next-Generation Weather Prediction Models was hosted by NOAA and DTC at the NOAA Center for Weather & Climate Prediction (NCWPC) in College Park, MD, Jan 27-29, 2015. A large number of participants from NOAA, the international operational community, and the research community gathered to discuss topics including microphysics, sub-grid scale clouds and turbulence, and deep convection. The first day of the workshop included two keynote presentations and… Read More

Summer 2014 |

Summer 2014 |

Summer 2014 |

Summer 2014 | Tim Brown-DTC, Qingfu Liu-EMC, Yong Kwon-formerly of EMC, Ligia Bernardet-DTC, Vijay Tallapragada-EMC, and Sam Trahan-EMC some of the HWRF instructors, May 2014, Taipei, Taiwan.