AmericanWx WRF

[dendrite]

As many of you are aware, we are working in conjunction with members Met Tech and SP to bring you our own WRF model. As of right now, the goal is to run this as a GFS-WRF at about 5km for the entire CONUS. The plan is for runs at 00z and 12z and running it out to about 36hrs.

As of now, Met Tech has the scripts to run the following...

Surface temp/wind/SLP

Surface wind/SLP

Radar reflectivity

3-hour precip

Total snowfall

Total rainfall

Fraction of frozen precip (a proxy for precip type)

CAPE

Helicity

Simulated infrared satellite

Skew-T plots

Precipitable water

500 mb vorticity and height

850 mb temp/wind/height

700 mb vertical velocity and height

300 mb winds

We have the ability to run cross sections, meteograms, soundings, etc eventually.

We'd like everyone to bang around some ideas for other maps you'd like to see. You guys helped fund this...now you get to decide what you want.

[CoastalWx]

Brian, you should add 700mb rh too. Even better, do you guys have the capability to do something like an 850-500mb average of both RH and VV?

[Kmlwx]

That definitely looks amazing to start already. Is there an ETA on soundings once this whole thing gets off the ground?

[SeanVA]

"300 mb winds"

Would this be of the jet stream?

[dtk]

Forget the products, run your own analysis/intialization.

[LocoAko]

Maybe a product including equivalent potential temperature and streamlines? Or some isentropic maps? Don't know how hard that'd be.

[csnavywx]

Few ideas:

925 temp/winds

250/200 winds (and 200mb temps for the Cobb method)

Also... Isentropic surfaces and winds! These are damn rare and hard to get ahold of.

[wxmeddler]

925mb Temperature/ Winds

700mb RH/(VV, if possible)

Lifted Index

[dendrite]

Brian, you should add 700mb rh too. Even better, do you guys have the capability to do something like an 850-500mb average of both RH and VV?

I actually brought those maps up that you like to post. I think they have the critical thicknesses for different layers as well?

That definitely looks amazing to start already. Is there an ETA on soundings once this whole thing gets off the ground?

No ETA on the soundings yet.

Maybe a product including equivalent potential temperature and streamlines? Or some isentropic maps? Don't know how hard that'd be.

theta-e was another one I mentioned to him...maybe some theta-e advection too?

Few ideas:

925 temp/winds

250/200 winds (and 200mb temps for the Cobb method)

Also... Isentropic surfaces and winds! These are damn rare and hard to get ahold of.

i'm sure he could figure the isentropic imagery out. Maybe plotted with winds, pressure, mixing ratio, and mont. stream func.?

I was thinking some things like frontogenesis, upper lvl conv/div (heck maybe some Q vectors at H7/H85 and Q-conv/div), and pres/wind on the DT.

Then some additional severe maps would be nice. Someone else mentioned LI...maybe we could throw some more indices on there too. Maybe some CIN, DCAPE, some lapse rates, shear, etc?

[huronicane]

When I'm doing severe forecasting, I like to look at:

Surface temp/wind/SLP

Surface wind/SLP

Radar reflectivity

3-hour precip

Total rainfall

CAPE (ML/MU/SB)

Helicity (0-1k, 0-3k)

Skew-T plots

Precipitable water

500 mb vorticity and height

850 mb temp/wind/height

700 mb vertical velocity and height

300 mb winds

Would love to see some additional indices...don't really need the lapse rates, if we have Skew-Ts. I'd love to see 0-1k and 0-3k EHI, 0-6k shear, 0-1k shear...and if you're doing 500mb vort/height, make sure the winds are included as well.

[dtk]

i'm sure he could figure the isentropic imagery out. Maybe plotted with winds, pressure, mixing ratio, and mont. stream func.?

I was thinking some things like frontogenesis, upper lvl conv/div (heck maybe some Q vectors at H7/H85 and Q-conv/div), and pres/wind on the DT.

Isentropic PV&winds!!

Qvectors can be fun too.

I made attempts at plotting these in real time way back when i was in grad school like almost a decade ago. The 90km real-time MM5 runs on an old linux machine and plots are still being generated (http://helios.aos.wisc.edu/current.shtml).

[okie333]

Snow depth (different from snowfall)

3-hr snowfall

Instantaneous snow/water ratio (be sure to mask correctly)

1000mb height (for the 1000-500mb thickness)

2m temp (NOT surface... they are two totally different values)

2m 3hr max temp

2m 3hr min temp

10m wind (again, NOT surface)

surface wind gust

Cloud cover %

500mb height anomaly

1000mb height anomaly (again, this is for thickness)

Instantaneous precip rate

Convective precip 3-hr

Instantaneous convective precip rate

Instantaneous snowfall rate (multiply the ratio by the precip rate while masking by precip type)

Precip type (not just %, but differentiating between RN/ZR/IP/SN)

Any chance of making it hourly instead of 3-hourly (NAM is hourly even though no one offers the maps online yet AFAIK)

[Kmlwx]

Even with the maps that will be incorporated to start this thing is going to be a number crunching beast.

[CoastalWx]

I actually brought those maps up that you like to post. I think they have the critical thicknesses for different layers as well?

No ETA on the soundings yet.

theta-e was another one I mentioned to him...maybe some theta-e advection too?

i'm sure he could figure the isentropic imagery out. Maybe plotted with winds, pressure, mixing ratio, and mont. stream func.?

I was thinking some things like frontogenesis, upper lvl conv/div (heck maybe some Q vectors at H7/H85 and Q-conv/div), and pres/wind on the DT.

Then some additional severe maps would be nice. Someone else mentioned LI...maybe we could throw some more indices on there too. Maybe some CIN, DCAPE, some lapse rates, shear, etc?

Yeah they have critical thicknesses as well. 1000-850 and 850-700. The highlighted bold is a pretty good idea as well. Maybe even some equivalent potential temp cross sections with RH and M surfaces?

[baroclinic_instability]

I posted this in the other thread, but I will post it again.

"Can we get IPV charts such as Dynamic Tropapause, various PV charts on isentropic surfaces, tropopause pressure, etc? Hard to find good maps of that."

[baroclinic_instability]

Isentropic PV&winds!!

Qvectors can be fun too.

I made attempts at plotting these in real time way back when i was in grad school like almost a decade ago. The 90km real-time MM5 runs on an old linux machine and plots are still being generated (http://helios.aos.wi...u/current.shtml).

Oh, already beat to the punch. Also like Q-Vectors, good suggestion.

[NaoPos]

850mb mositure transport,critical thickness?

[Itunis]

Sounds pretty awesome as-is to a layman like me. What is the ETA on when the model will be up and running?

[Kmlwx]

Sounds pretty awesome as-is to a layman like me. What is the ETA on when the model will be up and running?

They had said like mid Decemberish

[Cheeznado]

3 hour and 12 hour snow maps (like Earl Barker). Precip type (snow/ZR/IP/R). 0-1KM SRH, 0-3KM EHI and 0-1KM EHI.

[Kmlwx]

3 hour and 12 hour snow maps (like Earl Barker). Precip type (snow/ZR/IP/R). 0-1KM SRH, 0-3KM EHI and 0-1KM EHI.

Man if it shows a fantasy snowstorm those maps will be getting posted crazily.

[okie333]

Man if it shows a fantasy snowstorm those maps will be getting posted crazily.

Be sure to advertise the site somewhere on every image. Drawing the string "AmericanWX.com" on the lower left of each image is ideal.

If it shows a fantasy snowstorm 36 hours out, then that says something about the accuracy of the model. A reality snowstorm would be more likely for it to show.

[wxmeddler]

Be sure to advertise the site somewhere on every image. Drawing the string "AmericanWX.com" on the lower left of each image is ideal.

This. We need to have a watermark or some kind of proprietary logo on the maps.

[Cory]

Lots of good suggestions here everyone...it'll take a lot of work to get some of them done, but the goal is to have the best weather model we can get. Many of these maps might not be ready when the model is first released but can be added along the way.

That definitely looks amazing to start already. Is there an ETA on soundings once this whole thing gets off the ground?

Soundings will be available as soon as the model is released (as well as BUFKIT files).

[Wx4cast]

How about make the output available in grib format so some of us meter beaters can massage the data in WINGRIDDS?

Also the ability to do point (forecast soundings) above and beyond standard "metar" sites or forecast points like BUFKIT allows.

[winterymix]

You guys helped fund this...now you get to decide what you want.

You should get some legalese on this stuff.

Copyright protection as well as notification

that material from this site cannot be reposted with authorization/giving credit

and most importantly, cannot be rendered elsewhere for profit going elsewhere.

It is that

good, it will get ripped off.

[okie333]

How about make the output available in grib format so some of us meter beaters can massage the data in WINGRIDDS?

Also the ability to do point (forecast soundings) above and beyond standard "metar" sites or forecast points like BUFKIT allows.

This. Make sure to have a selective-variable interface with regional subsetting though, maybe with the option to download lower-res GRIB files in addition to the full ones (since sites making 800x600 CONUS maps don't need much better than 10km resolution). Point soundings could be achieved with GrADS, though starting a new instance (necessary for every request of a dynamically-generated sounding) on a 2 GHz web server takes an entire second (in webspeak, that's a very long time to be generating content per visit unless you have a multicore server). Note that actually generating the sounding takes much shorter than this, so pre-determined points (like stations) could be generated en masse at a much faster rate than this.

Make sure to include at least the entire rectangle from 22N to 53N, 129W to 64W. Depending on how the model works, you may want to expand this to 20N to 60N, 140W to 60W (to get some sampling on systems from important areas... the models can't forecast an already-existing system that they never saw to begin with).

Also, check out the list of variables I posted earlier in the thread (in addition to those already in the first post).

What dataset will you be using to initialize the model?

[Cory]

What dataset will you be using to initialize the model?

GFS

[LakeEffectKing]

Any chance of getting these parameters/maps??

It would decrease the work load of the Mid Atlantic mets, save valuable server resources, and reduce Americanwx's carbon footprint!

[Fred Gossage]

I'm sure the severe weather crew would appreciate LCL/LFC heights and 0-3 km CAPE added to the list.