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Presentation Shortened to Remove Material Still Under Review Conclusions Remain the Same

A Report to the WWRP Working Group on Nowcasting Research , 9 February 2011 Science of Nowcasting Winter Weather for Vancouver 2010 (SNOW-V10) by George Isaac Cloud Physics and Severe Weather Research Section Environment Canada. Presentation Shortened to Remove Material Still Under Review

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Presentation Shortened to Remove Material Still Under Review Conclusions Remain the Same

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  1. A Report to the WWRP Working Group on Nowcasting Research, 9 February 2011 Science of Nowcasting Winter Weather for Vancouver 2010 (SNOW-V10)byGeorge IsaacCloud Physics and Severe Weather Research SectionEnvironment Canada Presentation Shortened to Remove Material Still Under Review Conclusions Remain the Same

  2. Acknowledgements Paul Joe1, Jocelyn Mailhot2, Monika Bailey1, Stephane Bélair2, Faisal Boudala1, Mindy Brugman4, Edwin Campos1, Richard Carpenter3, Stewart Cober1, Bertrand Denis4, Chris Doyle4. Doug Forsyth5, Ismail Gultepe1,Thomas Haiden6, Ivan Heckman1, Laura Huang1, Jason Milbrandt2, Ruping Mo4, Roy Rasmussen7, Janti Reid1, Trevor Smith4, Ron Stewart 8, and Donghai Wang9 1 Cloud Physics and Severe Weather Research Section, Environment Canada2 Recherche en prévision numérique, Environment Canada3Weather Decision Technologies, Oklahoma, USA4 Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada5National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma, USA6Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), Austria7 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Colorado, USA8 Department of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba9Chinese Academy of Meteorological Science, China

  3. Main Goals of SNOW-V10Related to Nowcasting in Complex Terrain (Developed at March 08 Workshop) • To improve our understanding and ability to forecast/nowcast low cloud, and visibility; • To improve our understanding and ability to forecast precipitation amount and type; • To improve forecasts of wind speed, gusts and direction; • To develop better forecast system production system(s). • Assess and evaluate value to end users; • To increase the capacity of WMO member states (Training component).

  4. Participating Groups • Observing Systems and Associated Nowcast Systems • EC Region OAN Sites • EC Research Sites • UBC (McKendry) and U. Manitoba (Stewart) • NCAR WSDDM System + (Rasmussen) • BOM STEPS System (Seed) • NSSL Radar (Forsyth) • FMI (Koistinen) • Modeling Systems • EC Research Models • WDT (Carpenter) • China (Donghai Wang) • Austria INCA (Haiden) • Germany (Bott) • Switzerland (Mueller) • Verification • EC Team • NCAR (Brown) Others: CSU (Chandra & Vaisala) U. Washington (House)

  5. The Winter Olympic Challenge Steep topography, highly variable weather elements in space and time Village Creekside 5 km

  6. Cypress Mountain

  7. Summary of Instruments Callaghan scanning C-Band Radar located near Whistler. NOAA/OU X-Band Dual- Polarization Radar located at Canada/U.S. Border south of Vancouver. Vertically Pointing X-Band Radars were located at TFT, RND and WWA. A 915 MHz Boundary Layer Wind Profiler located at Squamish Airport (WSK). A profiling microwave radiometer located at Timing Flats (TFT) A rawindsonde system located at Nesters (VOC). Ceilometers located at YVR, WWA, TFT, WSK, WGP, and VOG, Recording visibility meters located at VOA, VOL, RND, VOT, VOG and YVR. Hot Plates located at YVR, VOG, RND, VOA, VOL and TFT Present weather sensors, either the Vaisala FD12P, Parsivel or POSS located at VOA, VOL, VOD, WWA, WSK, YVR, TFT, VOT, RND, and VOG, A 3D anemometer located at the ski jump (VOW). Temperature, relative humidity and GPS sensors were installed on the Whistler Village to Roundhouse Gondola, and the Whistler to Blackcomb gondola. The Roundhouse site, near the helipad, was instrumented with a significant list of equipment. as an extension of the Fog Remote Sensing and Modeling Project (FRAM) (Gultepe et al., 2009). Special surface sites measuring temperature and humidity were installed by UBC up Whistler Mountain Snow Density measurements were made at some selected sites, mainly VOA, VOL RND and VOC after significant snowstorms. Snow Photographs were made continuously at RND as a special project during some intensive periods and then irregularly outside those periods.

  8. Whistler Peak Looking East Towards the Telecomm Tower

  9. DMIST GCIP FD12P MRR VRG GEONOR K-Z Solar Radiation Wind LPM Parsivel 3D Anemometer Sentry Vis FMD YorkU PC TPU SFC Radiometer 4X SW IR Radiation/Surface Radiatioin WXT Aerosol TPU Icing Detector Roundhouse Helipad Site (RND)

  10. OAN SNOW-V10 Whistler VOAThree Platforms Maintenance

  11. VOA (Pig Alley) • Precipitation Occurrence Sensing System (POSS) • X Band, Continuous Wave Radar • Large sample volume • Present weather, precipitation type and intensity • Doppler Spectrum, Drop Size Distribution • Parsivel - Laser-imaging system,particle shadows • - Present weather, precipitation type and intensity • - Doppler Spectrum, Drop Size Distribution • Visibility due to precipitation reported • Hot Plate – heated top/bottom surface • Designed for snowfall precipitation measurements • Wind • Vaisala FD12P – laser scattering system • - Present weather, precipitation type and intensity • Doppler Spectrum, Drop Size Distribution • Visibility • All 1 minute (1 and 1)!

  12. VOL Mid-station/Raven’s Nest Harvey Fellowes

  13. VOB (No Power, 15/1 min data)

  14. Timing Flats

  15. Timing Flats (VOT) Ceilometer 25K, (also CL31 – aerosol mode) Radiometer Parsivel OAN (1 min) POSS MRR Move in summer

  16. Whistler Village Gondola (WVG) Local Beer Company

  17. 1 degree

  18. P2P (Peak to Peak)

  19. Snow PhotographyMcGill UniversityU Manitoba Need to help develop higher accuracy radar retrievals.

  20. NSSL XBand DualPol 100 km Network Radar Coverage Whistler Radar

  21. Whistler Doppler Weather Radar

  22. Blocked flow (downslope winds) means Intense precipitation is on the slope and not on mountain peak Precipitation: the intense precipitation is on the slope. Doppler velocity: Blue means air is moving to the left or downslope

  23. Squamish Airport LAP-3000 Wind Profiler co-located with Full compound autostation. Site also had Remote Video System and Automatic Weather Station EC OAN

  24. Wind Profile for 12 hours duration. Normally, just 1 profile with radiosondes. Considerable structure within 12 hours.

  25. Canadian Models Used in SNOW-V10

  26. Other Countries Models Used in SNOW-V10

  27. Products During Olympics • Each group produced a Table showing 24 hour forecast of significant variables for main venue sites (hourly intervals and 10 to 15 min intervals in first two hours). Similar to what forecasters produce • A Research Support Desk was run during Olympics and Paralympics (virtual and on-site) providing real time support to forecasters. • A SNOW-V10 Web site was created with many of the products (time series for sites, remote sensing products, area displays, soundings (gondola and others), and a very successful Blog.

  28. SNOW-V10 Research Support Desk (RSD) On-Site (3 scientists) WebEx (at least once per day) VANOC Chris Doyle Central Forecast Office Trevor Smith et al. SNOW-V10 Web Site SNOW-V10 Blog 1 min Data from Research Sites Whistler Radar Microwave Radar MRR Wind Profiler Gondola Profiles Model and Data Charts Forecast Tables Nowcasts etc Venue Forecasters Cypress Freestyle Callaghan Nordic Callaghan Ski Jump Whistler Alpine Whistler Sliding Pacfic Weather Centre Data 15 Min Data Soundings Meteograms Satellite Data Other Model Data

  29. Equipment on Whistler mountain provided good data for forecasters and help in understanding weather processes Harvey’s Cloud Remote Sensors Most of SNOW-V10 data from instruments are now being displayed on Web site (http://www.snow-v10.ca). Model data is also being shown.

  30. Weather Decision Technologies (WDT) Products for Vancouver 2010

  31. INCA (Integrated Nowcasting through Comprehensive Analysis) developed at the Austrian national weather service Products were available in real time for forecaster use and evaluation

  32. Adaptive Blending of Observations and Model (ABOM): What is it how does it work • Statistical method for generating point forecasts using model and observation data • The current observation + a weighted combination of forecasts from three different methods: • Extrapolation of the current observation trend • The change predicted by a model forecast • Observation persistence • The weights are determined from recent history and are updated every 15 minutes with new observation data (an hour was used in the studies here)

  33. Background of INTW INTW refers to integrated weighted model LAM 1k, LAM 2.5k and REG15k were selected to generate INTW Major steps of INTW generation Data pre-checking - defining the available NWP models and observations Extracting the available data for specific variable and location Calculating statistics from NWP model data, e.g. MAE, RMSE Deriving weights from model variables based on model performance Defining and performing dynamic and variational bias correction Generating Integrated Model forecasts (INTW)

  34. Summary and Future …1 Many physical processes were well documented during SNOW-V10 such as: diabatic effects due to melting snow, wind flow around and over terrain, diurnal flow reversal in valleys associated with daytime heating, precipitation reductions and increases due to local terrain influences, etc Weather changes rapidly in complex terrain and it is necessary to get good measurements at time resolutions of at least 1 -15 min. SNOW-V10 attempted to get measurements at 1 min resolution where possible. Because of the rapidly changing nature of the weather, weather forecasts also must be given at high time resolution. There are many difficulties in measuring parameters, especially precipitation amount and type in this environment. Special scanning strategies were necessary for the scanning radar placed at Whistler and significant differences were observed with many different types of surface precipitation sensors placed at several locations.

  35. Summary and Future …2 SNOW-V10 has made progress in forecasting “non traditional” variables like ceiling, visibility, wind gusts, etc. Nowcast schemes are showing skill. There is value in presenting real-time obs and several models to forecasters doing Nowcasting. The techniques tested are not yet good enough to issue standalone nowcasts. Significant errors exist of high impact events that require forecaster intervention. Weather Forecasts, both long and short term, were critical in the conduct of these games, both long term and short term. Statistical verification of models and nowcasts are continuing. Papers are being written on SNOW-V10 data. At the 4th SNOW-V10 Workshop held in Huntsville, north of Toronto, 11-14 January, with 35 participants, it was decided to prepare a special issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics (Pageoph) with a deadline of 1 October 2011 for submission of papers. 31 tentative titles have been received. The idea of a forecaster training workshop is being explored.

  36. Questions?

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