A Year Locked in Ice
Unprecedented international expedition to explore the central Arctic gets underway The most ambitious research expedition ever to target the central Arctic got underway as the […]
A Year Locked in Ice Read More >
CIRES
Measuring the impact of additional instrumentation on the skill of numerical weather prediction models at forecasting wind ramp events during the first Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP)
Grid operators responsible for making decisions on what kind of power generation to use to keep the grid in balance (conventional versus weather dependent, such as wind or solar) need a reliable numerical weather prediction (NWP) model to ensure grid stability. A statistically significant improvement of the ramp event forecast skill is found through the assimilation of the special WFIP data in two different study areas, and variations in model skill between up‐ramp versus down‐ramp events are found.
Bulletin of the AMS: Improving Wind Energy Forecasting through Numerical Weather Prediction Model Development
Researchers leveraged a multi-scale dataset of observations from the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project field campaign in the northwest U.S. to diagnose and quantify systematic forecast errors in the operational High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model during weather events of particular concern to wind energy forecasting. Examples of such events are cold pools, gap flows, thermal troughs/marine pushes, mountain waves, and topographic wakes. This study describes the model development and testing undertaken during WFIP2, and demonstrates forecast improvements. Specifically, WFIP2 found that mean absolute errors in rotor-layer wind speed forecasts could be reduced by 5-20% in winter by improving the turbulent mixing lengths, horizontal diffusion, and gravity wave drag. The model improvements made in WFIP2 are also shown to be applicable to regions outside of complex terrain. Ongoing and future challenges in model development will also be discussed.
GSD/CIRES/CIRA researchers to present at the Developmental Testbed Center annual Science Advisory Board meeting
September 19-20: Researchers from GSD, CIRES, and CIRA will present research progress at the annual Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) Science Advisory Board Meeting. The DTC is a distributed facility where the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) community can test and evaluate new models and techniques for use in research and operations. The DTC is a NOAA/NCAR collaboration, and the board is made of members of the U.S. NWP community including GSD's Curtis Alexander.
GSD, CIRA, CIRES scientists present at 2019 National Weather Association Annual meeting
September 7-12 Four GSD, CIRES, and CIRA scientists will present at the 2019 National Weather Association Annual Meeting in Huntsville, AL. Titles include “Digital Aviation Services in the NWS,” “INSITE: IDSS for Aviation Weather,” “An Update on the RAP/HRRR Models and a look ahead,” “The Potential for Hazard Services: Science, Communication, and Collaboration for the NWS,” and “An update on CIRA's GOES 16/17 Proving Ground efforts.”
GSD, CIRA, CIRES scientists present at 2019 National Weather Association Annual meeting Read More >