Evaluation of a 1.0km prototype model for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games: Forecasting winds for the alpine ski venue

During the winters of 2007 and 2008, members of the 2010 forecasting team were on location in Whistler, B.C. to build local expertise ahead of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. A forecaster noticed how a strong southwesterly flow aloft could on occasion generate downslope winds reaching the upper portion of the Olympic alpine ski runs which could impact on the timing and fairness of the competitions during the Olympic Games.

This presentation will show how the 1.0 km prototype GEM-LAM "Olympic" run performs in forecasting such downslope winds events observed during the winter of 2008 at the Whistler alpine ski competition site. A comparison will be made with the 15 km GEM-Regional model which provides the initial conditions.

The Canadian Meteorological Centre and the Meteorological Research Division of Environment Canada have been working to develop this 1.0 km resolution prototype version of GEM-LAM (Limited Area Model) over southwestern British Columbia, as part of the effort of the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) to provide state-of-the-art weather forecasts for the 2010 Winter Games. This LAM run starts at 04Z or 16Z performing a 16 hours integration, cascading from larger 2.5km and a 10.0km windows starting 1 hour and 4 hour earlier respectively. The LAM cascade is driven by initial conditions provided by the GEM-Regional model runs initialized 16 hours earlier at 00Z (same day) for the 16Z run and 12Z (previous day) for the 04Z issue.