Autumn 2013 | As operational centers move inexorably toward ensemble-based probabilistic forecasting, the role of the DTC as a bridge between research and operations has expanded to include testing and evaluation of ensemble forecasting systems. In 2010 the ensemble task area in the DTC was designed with the ultimate goal of providing an environment in which extensive testing and evaluation of ensemble-related techniques developed by the NWP community could be conducted. Because these results should be immediately… Read More

Autumn 2013 | The Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) has long been a partner with the DTC since its “unofficial” early days of “core testing” (remember those), to its official charter membership signing in September of 2009, to date. Air Force Weather (AFW) recognized early, the essential role this organization could, and would, play in bolstering and mitigating an ever-growing US Air Force resource constrained terrestrial weather RDT&E environment. Further partnering with our NOAA National Centers for… Read More

Autumn 2013 | In many ways, Hui is the quintessential DTC lead. Stationed at NCEP’s Environmental Modeling Center but spending several weeks a year in Boulder, she lives R2O (data assimilation variety) day in and day out. Besides the frequent commutes, she is a long-distance veteran in another way, with undergraduate and masters’ level education in China, a PhD at Florida State, and now her dual appointment of sorts in DC and Boulder. There was some chance at Nanjing University that she would follow a different career: space science… Read More

Autumn 2013 | Unlike some other forecast model components, a data assimilation (DA) system is usually built to be flexible in order to be run by different forecast systems at varying scales. Its testing and evaluation must therefore be performed in the context of a specific application; in other words, it must be adaptable to different operational requirements as well as to research advances. Established in 2009, the DTC DA team started providing data assimilation support and testing and… Read More

Autumn 2013 | Given its mission to facilitate the research to operations transition in numerical weather prediction, the DTC has a mandate to stay connected with both the research and operational NWP communities. As a means to that end, the DTC Science Advisory Board (SAB) was established to provide (i) advice on strategic directions, (ii) recommendations for new code or new NWP innovations for testing and evaluation, and (iii) reviews of DTC Visitor Program… Read More

Autumn 2013 | The Tropical Cyclone Modeling Team (TCMT) was formed as part RAL’s Joint Numerical Testbed (JNT) in 2009 to help assess hurricane and tropical storm forecasts from experimental models. As such, its members interact with the DTC in two particular ways: by designing methods and products appropriate for tropical cyclone verification that can be installed in maintained software at the DTC, and by providing both real-time and retrospective performance measures for each years’ hurricane forecasts. At a working… Read More