Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Science Rendezvous > 2009 Posters
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Ongoing development and testing of a generalized cloud analysis package within the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation for initializing the Rapid Refresh mesoscale prediction system

Ming Hu, Steve Weygandt, Stan Benjamin, and Dezso Devenyi

An initial version of a generalized cloud analysis package, which combines the strengths of the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) and the Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) cloud analysis packages, has been developed within the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) for the purpose of initializing the Rapid Refresh (RR). This package is a key component in the initialization of ongoing cloud and precipitation systems within the hourly cycled RR. The RR employs a version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and is scheduled to replace the current operational RUC at NCEP. As with the RUC, the Rapid Refresh cloud analysis is critical for the accuracy of short-range ceiling and visibility forecasts, which are extremely important for aviation. Recent work on the cloud analysis has included improving the efficiency of the generalized cloud analysis package through parallelizing the data ingest and cloud analysis itself and putting the cloud analysis in hourly Rapid Refresh cycles. Future work will include adding new observation data sets to the GSI cloud analysis (lightning and satellite derived water paths) and coupling the radar reflectivity portion of the cloud analysis to the WRF model pre-forecast integration to better initialize convection.Airborne Microwave.