2013 NOAA HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment

The third annual HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment was conducted January 15 - February 15, 2012. The experiment brought together forecasters, researchers, and model developers from across the weather enterprise to explore the use of ensemble systems to help quantify and communicate uncertainty in winter weather forecasts. This year's experiment also highlighted a new snowfall accumulation technique that uses model microphysics information to refine the snowfall forecasts. The experiment highlighted the importance of ensemble guidance for winter weather forecasts and identified several potential ways to improve and expand WPC's current winter weather product suite. Here is a complete summary of the 2013 Winter Weather Experiment.

 

2012 Atmospheric River Retrospective Forecasting Experiment

The first Atmospheric River Retrospective Forecasting Experiment (ARRFEX) was a collaboration between the Earth Systems Research Laboratory (ESRL) and the Hydrometeorological Testbed (HMT)-Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC). The experiment was held September 17-28, 2012 at the new National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP). The experiment brought together forecasters, modelers and researchers from River Forecast Centers (RFC), Weather Forecast Offices (WFO), the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), ESRL and the University of Utah to identify potential techniques to improve forecasts of atmospheric river (AR) induced extreme precipitation events along the U.S. West Coast. The experiment featured retrospective analysis of 8 pre-selected AR events that resulted in heavy precipitation along the U.S. West Coast during the 2009-2012 cool seasons. Participants were instructed to create a variety of forecast products, in pseudo-real time, for each event using archived operational and experimental numerical model guidance and datasets. Here is a complete summary of the 2012 Atmospheric River Retrospective Forecasting Experiment.

 

2012 NOAA HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment

The second annual HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment was conducted January 9 - February 10, 2012, and brought together forecasters, researchers and model developers to explore the challenges of probabilistic winter weather forecasting. The experiment focused on the use of ensemble systems to help quantify and communicate uncertainty in winter weather forecasts. The experiment revealed that while probabilistic winter weather forecasting remains a challenge, higher resolution ensembles can provide critical forecast details needed to isolate specific parameters for better depiction of forecast uncertainty. Here is a complete summary of the 2012 Winter Weather Experiment.

 

QPF Component of the 2011 HWT Spring Experiment

Continuing the partnership started in 2010, HMT-HPC staff and HPC forecasters once again traveled to Norman, OK to facilitate the QPF component of the 2011 HWT Spring Experiment. During the experiment, participants evaluated the utility of high resolution deterministic and ensemble guidance for precipitation forecasting. High resolution ensembles were again found to provide skillful forecast guidance, highlighting the potential for this type of guidance to add further skill to warm season QPF in the future. Here is a complete summary of the 2011 QPF component of the experiment.

 

2011 NOAA HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment

The inuagural HMT-HPC Winter Weather Experiment was held at HPC during January-February 2011. HPC forecasters as well as visiting scientists from NOAA-HMT, other NCEP centers and NWS field officies participated in the experiment. The primary focus of the experiment was to explore the role of high-resolution model data in improving forecasts of precipitation type, snow and ice accumulation, and meso-scale snow bands. The experiment revealed that the high resolution models were often too slow with the progression of the surface low, which impacted their precipitation and thermal fields. Here is a complete summary of the 2011 Winter Weather Experiment.

 

QPF Component of the 2010 HWT Spring Experiment

HMT-HPC partnered with the Hazardous Weather Testbed to add a QPF component to their 2010 Spring Experiment. During the experiment, participants explored the use of high resolution convection-allowing deterministic and ensemble guidance for potential improvement of warm season QPF. High resolution models were found to have skill in forecasting warm season QPF, which portends well for future forecast improvements. Forecast guidance from the 4km, 26 member Storm Scale Ensemble Forecast system (SSEF) provided by University of Oklahoma's Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) was particularly impressive. A summary of the QPF Component of the 2010 HWT Spring Experiment was presented at the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. In addition to leading the QPF component of the HWT Spring Experiment, HMT-HPC hosted a two week parallel experiment for HPC forecasters.