National Blend of Global Models An Overview

1. National Blend of Global ModelsAn Overview Jeff Waldstreicher NOAA/NWS Eastern Region HQ Bohemia, NY 15th Northeast Regional Operational Workshop November 12-13, 2014 – Albany, NY

2. Origins of the National Model Blend REASONING Local / Regional Model Blend Initiatives WRN Roadmap NAPA Report FUNDING Sandy Supplemental JPSS Gap Mitigation: projects that make better use of existing model data

3. Early Roots in Regional Blends • Improvements in verification and consistency scores for the NWS National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) • Operational Efficiencies BUT… • Sustainability of the regional solution? • Consistency between regional approaches and national centers? • Model data dissemination limitations?

4. Early Roots in Regional Blends Need a national system: • Harness full capabilities of NWP systems and national computing power • Full suite of ensembles • Employ state of the art statistical post processing techniques • Downscaling • Bias Correction • Enable enhanced consistency within NWS forecast information National Blend of Models

5. National Model Blender Project • Develop a set of next-generation foundational gridded guidance products for NDFD weather elements based on NWS and non-NWS model information. FNMOC CMC ECWMF ENSEMBLES GFS ENSEMBLES ECWMF CMC ENSEMBLES GFS NDFD

6. National Model Blender Project Objective Improve qualityand consistency of the NWS National Digital Forecast Database Improve operational efficiency 6-8 hrs. of manual grid manipulation Current NWS Forecaster Leverage skill of guidance to assist with freeing up time to focus on DSS and hazardous weather operations

7. NDFD Elements

8. The National Blend Project Create a NWS methodology for a national blend (“best”) product, beginning with the Day 3 - 8 time frame (Phase I) Extensible to a full set of NWS deterministic and probabilistic products covering days 1-10 (Phase II). GFS ECWMF ECWMF ENSEMBLES CMC NAEFS

9. National Blend Project – Phase I Focus on Days 3- 8, so initial development efforts are concentrated on global deterministic and ensemble systems • Gridded Guidance Products: • Max/Min Temperature • 3-hr Temp and Dewpoint • Wind speed and direction • Sky Cover • PoP • Precipitation Type • QPF

10. National Blend Project – Phase II Additional Elements: • Snowfall Amount • Wind Gusts • Predominant Weather • Others as needed* *Derive where it makes sense to ensure consistency, efficiency: i.e. Relative Humidity, Apparent Temperature Expansion to Days 1-10 • Non-global NWP systems (e.g., NAM, SREF) Development of a suite of probabilistic guidance

11. The National Blend Plan • The National Blend will be distributed twice daily. • WPC will provide oversight of the National Blend for Days 3-8 to maintain meteorological and spatial consistency. • WFO’s will receive both objective and WPC (edited) grids. WPC Weather Forecast Offices

12. 8 Sub-Projects Funded from Sandy Supplemental ~$2.2 million • Lead efforts of post-processing team, contribute GEFS Reforecast data sets, contribute to PoP/QPF development and new blending approaches, participate in evaluation (Hamill; OAR/ESRL/PSD) • Advanced MOS statistical post-processing techniques for calibration of NDFD variables and blending of model output (Gilbert; OST/MDL) • Expand NAEFS post-processing (Zhu; NCEP/EMC)

13. Sub-Projects Funded from Sandy Supplemental ~$2.2 million • Accelerate URMA/RTMA improvements for use as “Analysis of Record” in model blender (DiMego/Pondeca; NCEP/EMC) • Perform grid-to-grid and grid-to-point verifications (Ruth; OST/MDL) • Data management and visualization tools to improve collaboration (Gilbert; OST/MDL) • Transition NCEP’s WPC blending and ensemble visualization capability to AWIPS II for the NCEP Perspective (Mainelli; NCEP/NCO) • Training (Mostek/Bua; COMET)

14. Consistency - NWS Standard Terrain Different terrain used in downscaling systems (AWIPS D2D display, GFE, RTMA) GFE - RTMA Terrain All shaded areas represent differences greater than 100m Example: Gridded MOS 2-m T @ 12 hours, diff > 10oF

15. Consistency - NWS Standard Terrain • Development groups, including those responsible for post-processing and those responsible for the analysis will downscale to the same terrain in use by the WFOs in GFE. • Develop methodology with schedule to merge local edits into a national terrain file • Develop procedures to create a gridded land/water mask for MDL and EMC downscaling applications consistent with the AWIPS terrain file and marine polygons • Scheduled for AWIPS 14.4.1, baselined by June 2015 • Remaining Question: How do local terrain edits get back to a national file?

16. Project Management Project Advisor Steve Lord Project Manager Kathy Gilbert Plenary Group (Regions, NWSEO, NCEP, OST, OCWWS, SPPO, OAR) Working level Teams Testing and Training (Novak and Craven) Analysis and Verification (Ruth) Post Processing (Hamill) Dissemination (Settelmaier and Gilbert Outreach (Sieveking and Gagan)

17. National Blend – Analysis & Verification Multi-Panel Graphical Interface created by MDL: http://www.mdl.nws.noaa.gov/~blend/blender.prototype.php • Initial evaluations of individual components of the blend • Prototype National Blend grids • Provide feedback to RTMA developers • Provide feedback to Blend developers • Show verification of experimental blends • Coming Soon: • Ability to overlay surface observations • Grid-based and point-based verification statistics for prototype blends

18. RTMA/URMA Evaluation

19. Blend Evaluation

20. National Blend Project - Evaluation • Internal Evaluation through Summer 2015 (Testing and Evaluation Team) • Formal Evaluation Sept 2015 – Mar 2016 • Analysis of Accuracy, Consistency, and Workload (focused on NDFD, WPC, and National Blend) WFO input will be key component of evaluation.

21. National Blend Project - Training • Overview of the National Blend • Components of the National Blend • Statistical Techniques & Procedures • National Blend Verification • National Blend Reliability • WPC Procedures

22. Questions? …or time for some liquid blends…