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The Future of Northwest Weather Prediction Cliff Mass University of Washington

Explore how the technology of Northwest weather prediction is changing, including advancements in numerical weather prediction, the transition to probabilistic forecasting, and the impact of new observing technologies and delivery methods. Discover the role of human forecasters in this evolving field.

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The Future of Northwest Weather Prediction Cliff Mass University of Washington

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  1. The Future of Northwest Weather PredictionCliff Mass University of Washington

  2. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.Alan Kay

  3. Some Questions • How will the technology of NW prediction change? • How will observing technologies change? • How will delivery of forecasting change? • How will the role of human forecasters change?

  4. Numerical Weather Prediction • The equations describing the atmosphere can be solved on a three-dimensional grid. • As computer speed increases, the number of grid points can be increased. • More (and thus) closer grid points means we can simulate (forecast) smaller scale features.

  5. A Steady Improvement over the past 50 years • Faster computers and better understanding of the atmosphere, allowed a better representation of important physical processes in the models • More and more data became available for initialization • Increasing resolution (more grid points). • As a result there has been a steady increase in forecast skill from 1960 to now.

  6. Forecast Skill Improvement National Weather Service Forecast Error Better Year

  7. NGM, 80 km,1995

  8. NGM, 1995

  9. 2001: Eta Model, 22 km

  10. 2007-2008 12-km UW MM5 Real-time 12-km WRF-ARW and WRF-NMM are similar December 3, 2007 0000 UTC Initial 12-h forecast 3-hr precip.

  11. NWS WRF-NMM (12-km)

  12. 2007-2008 4-km MM5 Real-time

  13. PREDICTION Trend to Hyper-resolution (1-2 km) during the next five years

  14. UW’s New 1.3 km WRF runs

  15. Surface Temperature-12km

  16. Temperature-1.3 km

  17. Increasing Resolution Will Not Be Enough

  18. The Transition from Deterministic to Probabilistic Prediction PREDICTION!

  19. A Fundamental Problem • The way we have been forecasting has been essentially flawed. • The atmosphere is a chaotic system, in which small differences in the initialization…well within observational error… can have large impacts on the forecasts, particularly for longer forecasts. • Not unlike a pinball game….

  20. A More Fundamental Problem • Similarly, uncertainty in our model physics also produces uncertainty in forecasts. • Thus, all forecasts have some uncertainty. • The uncertainty increases in time.

  21. This is Ridiculous!

  22. Or this…

  23. Forecast Probabilistically • We should be using probabilities for all our forecasts or at least providing the range of possibilities. • There is an approach to handling this issue that is being explored by the forecasting community…ensemble forecasts

  24. Ensemble Prediction • Instead of making one forecast…make many…each with a slightly different initialization • Possible to do now with the vastly greater computation resources that are available.

  25. Ensemble Prediction • Can use ensembles to give the probabilities that some weather feature will occur. • Can also predict forecast skill! • It appears that when forecasts are similar, forecast skill is higher. • When forecasts differ greatly, forecast skill is less.

  26. Probabilistic Prediction • So instead of saying the temperature in two days will be 67F. We might tell you: 50% probability it will be between 64 and 69F 90% probability it will be between 62 and 72F.

  27. Probability Density Functions (PDF)

  28. Ensemble-Based Probabilistic Products

  29. PROBCAST: www.probcast.com

  30. But How Do We Communicate Probabilistic Information?Will People Accept and Use It?

  31. Prediction • In ten years, the meteorological profession will be able to produce high-resolution probabilistic weather forecasts AND analyses. • Probabilistic forecasts and analyses will be available for a wide range of weather information.

  32. PREDICTION:Weather Satellites Will Provide Extraordinary Amounts of Information over the Entire Earth The idea of a data void over the Pacific will seem quaint and old-fashioned New satellite are planned that will give huge numbers of vertical soundings and other information over the oceans!

  33. Better than Star Trek!

  34. New Hyperspectral Satellite Systems Will Produce Thousands of High Quality Vertical Soundings Daily over the Pacific

  35. The Cosmic Satellites Will Provide More Soundings!

  36. The NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Satellite Will Put a Radar In Space

  37. PREDICTIONNorthwest Weather Radar Coverage Will Get Much Better

  38. Until the Mid-90s the Northwest Had Extraordinarily Poor Radar Coverage • Before the early 90s, only Portland had a dedicated weather radar and the rest of the area tried to get weather information from air-traffic control radar. • In the early-1990s, the NWS installed the NEXRAD Doppler radars

  39. Camano Island Weather Radar

  40. But there were major gaps in coverage, particularly along the coast Now

  41. Senator Maria Cantwell Intervenes:A New Coastal Radar Will Be Installed in 2011

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