Overview of the Pacific Northwest Environmental Prediction System

Supported by the Northwest Modeling Consortium…the regional modeling effort centered at the UW is

• Running the MM5 at 36, 12, and 4 km resolution• Running the new WRF model at 36, 12 km and 4 km

resolution• Running TWO high resolution regional ensemble systems

to provide probabilistic forecasts and data assimilation• Gathering all local weather observations from dozens of

networks. Plus quality control.• Running a wide range of weather applications dealing with

air quality, hydrology, transportation weather and fire weather.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/mm5rt/

36 km

12 km

4 km

NWNet: Regional Real-Time Collection of Over 60 Networks Over the Pacific Northwest

The UW Quality Control System

• A major task continues to be the gathering of all real-time observations of the region into one place

• Right now we acquire over 60 networks in real time for displaying on our web site, verification, and many other uses

• Quality Control is essential for such a heterogeneous network of networks.

The UW Quality Control and Warning System

• We have developed an advanced QC system suitable for an area of complex terrain Have also created an automated QC display system that one can check on the web and which can automatically tell the manager of a network when their data is suspect

The effort has roughly three clusters of Linux machines and 120 TB of storage

The “Audience” for NW MM5 Products Continues to Increase

The UW Ensemble System• The UW ensemble system was borne out of experience from

the high-resolution local MM5 effort (36-12-4 km resolution)• Specifically, although high resolution in general produced

better (sharper, high amplitude) structures, the forecasts verified only marginally better than lower resolution forecasts using traditional measures.

• UW research on forecast verification and evaluation revealed large differences, and thus uncertainty, in the initializations and forecasts of major operational forecasting systems.

• Also apparent that there is considerable uncertainty in the model physical parameterizations.

• Previous results showed that approximately 12-km resolution was needed to get the major regional mesoscale features “right.”• Thus, it was natural to create a 12-km mesoscale ensemble system for the Northwest.

UW Ensemble System

UW Mesoscale Ensemble System• Single limited-area mesoscale modeling system

(MM5)• 2-day (48-hr) forecasts at 0000 UTC in real-time

since January 2000. New 12 UTC cycle• 36 and 12-km domains.

Configurations of the MM5 short-range ensemble grid domains. (a) Outer 151127 domain with 36-km horizontal grid spacing. (b) Inner 103100 domain with 12-km horizontal grid spacing.

a) b)

36-km 12-km

UW Ensemble System• UW system is based on the use of analyses and

forecasts of major operational modeling centers.• The idea is that differences in initial conditions of

various operational centers is a measure of IC uncertainty.

• These IC differences reflect different data inventories, assimilation schemes, and model physics/numerics and can be quite large, often much greater than observation errors.

• In this approach each ensemble member uses different boundary conditions--thus finessing the problem of the BC restraining ensemble spread.

Resolution (~ @ 45 N ) ObjectiveAbbreviation/Model/Source Type Computational Distributed Analysis

avn, Global Forecast System (GFS), Spectral T254 / L64 1.0 / L14 SSINational Centers for Environmental Prediction ~55 km ~80 km 3D Var cmcg, Global Environmental Multi-scale (GEM), Finite 0.90.9/L28 1.25 / L11 3D VarCanadian Meteorological Centre Diff ~70 km ~100 km eta, limited-area mesoscale model, Finite 32 km / L45 90 km / L37 SSINational Centers for Environmental Prediction Diff. 3D Var gasp, Global AnalysiS and Prediction model, Spectral T239 / L29 1.0 / L11 3D VarAustralian Bureau of Meteorology ~60 km ~80 km

jma, Global Spectral Model (GSM), Spectral T106 / L21 1.25 / L13 OIJapan Meteorological Agency ~135 km ~100 km ngps, Navy Operational Global Atmos. Pred. System, Spectral T239 / L30 1.0 / L14 OIFleet Numerical Meteorological & Oceanographic Cntr. ~60 km ~80 km

tcwb, Global Forecast System, Spectral T79 / L18 1.0 / L11 OITaiwan Central Weather Bureau ~180 km ~80 km ukmo, Unified Model, Finite 5/65/9/L30 same / L12 3D VarUnited Kingdom Meteorological Office Diff. ~60 km

“Native” Models/Analyses Available

Relating Forecast Skill and Model Spread

Mean Absolute Error of Wind Direction is Far Less WhenSpread is EXTREME (Low or High)

Ensemble-Based Probabilistic Products

Local Data Assimilation using an EnKF System

• The system produces 90 different analyses that can be combined to produce the best guess at what is there and tell us the uncertainty in the analyses.

• These analyses can be integrated forward in time to give us probabilistic predictions of the future

• We now have it running at 36 and 12 km resolution…

A Vision of an Integrated Regional Prediction System

Output from the UW MM5 is now being fed into a number of modeling and diagnostic systems:

• Distributed Hydrological Model for Western Washington

• Calgrid Air Quality Model• Land Surface Model for Surface Temperature

Prediction• Smoke, Ventilation, and Fire Guidance• Transportation Information System

The UW Coupled MM5-

DHSVM Hydrological

Prediction System

• Terrain - 150 meter aggregated from 30 meter resolution DEM

• Land Cover - 19 classes aggregated from over 200 GAP classes

• Soils - 3 layers aggregated from 13 layers (31 different classes); variable soil depth from 1-3 meters

• Stream Network - based on 0.25 km2 source area

DHSVM: Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model

DHSVM

DHSVM Distributed Hydrological Prediction System

11/25 12/01 12/07 12/13 12/19

December 11-12, 2001 Santium River

The UW/Washington State University Coupled MM5-Air QualityPrediction System

AIRPACT Regional Air Quality Modeling System

MM5 CALMET CALGRID

u, v formattedfor each layer of CALMET

3D met field:u, v, w, T,

BL variables

3D species field:O3, VOC, NOx,

primary PM

IC/BClanduseterrain

landuseterrain

IC/BCemissions

chem mechdry dep

p

Calgrid Air Quality Prediction System

AIRPACT Current Developments

• Expand domain• Add air toxics• Improve PM emissions

inventory– woodstoves & other

primary PM sources• Improve web graphics and

GIS content• Long term: convert to

CMAQ

AIRPACT Output Products

PNW 2001 O3 Enumclaw ForecastAug 10 - 14, 2001

0.000

0.010

0.020

0.030

0.040

0.050

0.060

0.070

0.080

221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228

Day of Year

O3 (ppm)

ObsPred

Road Weather Information System• This effort is a partnership between the UW and

the Washington State Department in Transportation, with funding from the US Department of Transportation.

• An attempt to combine weather data, modeling, road information, and other data sources into applications that can serve the public and the Washington State DOT.

• Rick Steed will provide a detailed briefing.

Washington State DOT Traveler Information System

U.S. Forest Service Smoke and Fire Management System

VentilationIndex

U.S. Forest Service

• MM5 grids are sent to the field for running Eulerian and Lagrangian smoke plume/dispersion models.

• MM5 output used for fire fighting operations.

Simulating Wildland Fire Simulating Wildland Fire in Real-Time in Real-Time

(www.fs.fed.us/bluesky)(www.fs.fed.us/bluesky)

Susan O’Neill, Sue FergusonSusan O’Neill, Sue FergusonUSDA Forest ServiceUSDA Forest Service

Rob WilsonRob WilsonUS EPAUS EPA

BlueSkyBlueSky

• Real-time Smoke Concentration Predictions: Prescribed, Wild, Agricultural Fires

• Daily Emission Tracking from Multi-Agency Burn Reporting Systems

• Quantitative Verification• Automated, centralized processing

– Forecasts for 5 domains daily• Web-access output products

BlueSkyBlueSky

What is it?What is it?Smoke Modeling FrameworkSmoke Modeling Framework

Area BurnedFuel MoistureFuel LoadingsFire LocationFire Ignition Time

FIRE FIRE CharacteristicsCharacteristics

EmissionsCalculate fuel consumption and variable rate emissions of: Heat Released, PM2.5, PM10, PM, CO, CO2, and CH4

Meteorology3-d Wind/Temp/MoistureUW MM5 Forecast System12 km Domain72 Hour Forecast

Smoke DispersionVisibility

ChemistryPM ConcentrationsPlume Rise

Web Display of Output Products (RAINS)

Animations, Zoom In/Out, Concentration Fields,Trajectories, Meteorological data,Overlay GIS Data

BlueSky Smoke Modeling

Framework

EPM/COMSUME v1.02BURNUP

CALPUFFHYSPLIT(CMAQ)

BlueSkyRAINS Output Products

BlueSkyRAINS Output Products

BlueSkyRAINS Output Products

BlueSkyRAINS Output Products

BlueSkyRAINS Output

Military Applications

• The NW MM5 is now the main source of regional forecasts for Navy and Air Force operations at Whidbey NAS and McChord Air Force Base, as well as the Everett Carrier homeport.

The End