Examining Successes of R2O Implementation in the METplus Verification System

With continued Unified Forecast System (UFS) improvements and ever-increasing end-user expectations of the forecasts they produce, proper utilization of Research to Operations (R2O) methods within verification and evaluation efforts is more important than ever. The enhanced Model Evaluation Tools (METplus) system has accelerated numerous operationally-dependent verification routines practicing these R2O methods, which decreases the amount of time that must be spent on this critical step of model improvement.

METplus is a verification suite composed of multiple elements housed in individual Github repositories, with each part playing a different, yet vital aspect in the verification process. Originally a small collection of MET tools, the METplus suite now boasts over a dozen tools dedicated to the reformatting of gridded and point-based dataset formats, multiple methods of replotting those datasets, nearly a dozen statistical tools utilizing both standard and object-based verification methods, an analysis suite for the aggregation and visualization of the verification results, all with Python-embedded capabilities to allow high flexibility and quick-start capabilities.

This presentation will highlight the successful R2O practices used in recent cooperative activities with weather office partners, allowing those users to build a METplus-based verification process unique to their needs and operational products. It will also outline upcoming work scheduled for the METplus suite and in-progress R2O projects.