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December Banter Thread 2


H2O

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NOAA has obviously run some OSSEs (Observing System Simulation Experiments) to confirm that additional dropsondes can be of use in certain situations, or they wouldn't be occasionally sending the G-IV out to the Pacific.

There was a campaign this last spring in the Rockies with dropsondes trying to see if additional observations would help with convective forecasting in the Plains. I assume results will start coming out this year.

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Time to predict what the 00Z models will predict.

 

NAM will look much better (OK storm), but still be sort of silly and hard to believe.

GFS will come back towards the 12Z solution, but only half-way, leaving weenies feeling unsatisfied and concerned.

Euro will improve slightly, but horrible 1:30 AM analysis will leave everyone confused. 

ORH_wxman and/or CoastalWX will make an appearance and mention something about frontogenesis in DC.

 

Bonus:

 

GGEM will show a rainstorm.

UKMET will have a weak low heading OTS off the Florida coast.

One down (NAM), three to go.

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Well this was in the W PAC with specific gridded settings, primarily off the NOGAPS/NAVGEM of course. Which they swear by, btw. Though I believe similar was noted in a paper on the subject from US Naval Postgraduate School which is the paper I initially started my inquest with.  Can't get a clean link without google code -- google "recon west pacific navy" if interested. 

 

I think we have enough proof through homeland stuff plus Atlantic recon to prove that the data is worth it if you can get it. I'm sure any of these issues are more with how the model ingests it or something. 

Actually, colleagues and collaborators of mine have recently published a paper describing how even the Pacific Recon data (winter storm reconnaissance) have a much smaller impact than when they were first deployed.  Here is the paper:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/MWR-D-12-00309.1?journalCode=mwre

 

And from the abstract:

Forecast impacts were generally neutral and thus smaller than reported in previous studies, most from over a decade ago, perhaps because of the improved forecast and assimilation system and the somewhat denser observation network. Target areas may also have been undersampled in this study. The neutral results from 2011 suggest that it may be more beneficial to explore other targeted observation concepts for the midlatitudes, such as assimilation of a denser set of cloud-drift winds and radiance data in dynamically sensitive regions.

 

Folks at NCEP did some data denial studies over the same 2011 period, I think, to corroborate these findings.  This is winter type recon data but gets the point across.  Models and assimilation have gotten substantially better over the years and we now have access to many more observations....most notably satellite based.

 

That being said, some of the recon observations we get for tropical cyclones still have huge impacts.  Though, based on the WSR findings, we are undertaking a small study to see if we can design better flight paths for some of the tropical cyclone recon missions (not the hurricane hunters dropping sondes in the core, but the surveillance/environmental missions).

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NOAA has obviously run some OSSEs (Observing System Simulation Experiments) to confirm that additional dropsondes can be of use in certain situations, or they wouldn't be occasionally sending the G-IV out to the Pacific.

There was a campaign this last spring in the Rockies with dropsondes trying to see if additional observations would help with convective forecasting in the Plains. I assume results will start coming out this year.

Actually, I think you are referring to OSE's (Observing system experiments)...not simulation experiments which require a truth/nature run and are simulations, not show "real impact".  See my other post regarding recent OSEs showing that the Pacific obs have a much smaller impact than expected.  In fact, there is a bit of a debate going on as to whether or not to continue flying the WSR missions.  Several well respected experts have recommended that it is simply no longer justifiable given the cost, and resources would be better diverted elsewhere (such as making better use of the observations we already have available, such as target data selected and satellite assimilation, etc.)

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Time to predict what the 00Z models will predict.

 

NAM will look much better (OK storm), but still be sort of silly and hard to believe.

GFS will come back towards the 12Z solution, but only half-way, leaving weenies feeling unsatisfied and concerned.

Euro will improve slightly, but horrible 1:30 AM analysis will leave everyone confused. 

ORH_wxman and/or CoastalWX will make an appearance and mention something about frontogenesis in DC.

 

Bonus:

 

GGEM will show a rainstorm.

UKMET will have a weak low heading OTS off the Florida coast.

Maybe not half-way back, but the GFS basically did what I thought it would. The weenies certainly did. 2 for 2 so far.

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