Use of MET+ and Bukovsky Regions for Grid-to-Observations Verification for the GFS

Since March 2012, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)-Environmental Modeling Center’s (EMC) Global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) Model Verification Package has used the grid-to-observations (grid-to-obs) verification system that was developed in-house at EMC. The grid-to-obs verification system verifies gridded model forecasts against observations, such as radiosondes, METARs, and buoy data. Verification for surface variables (e.g., 2 meter temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, and 10 meter wind) is done over the NCEP grid number 104 with each grid point being assigned to one of thirty verification regions. The grid-to-obs verification system provides insightful information into model biases and has been helpful in the evaluation of parallel models for proposed for operational implementation. However, the current verification regions are too numerous and the areas contained within some of the verification regions are quite different climatologically.

Under the Next Generation Global Prediction System’s (NGGPS) Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP), EMC is working to unify its verification efforts around the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Developmental Testbed Center’s (DTC) Model Evaluation Tools Plus (METplus) verification system. METplus has been developed to recreate the capabilities of EMC’s grid-to-obs verification system. In moving towards a new verification system, EMC also hopes to move towards using new verification regions for the grid-to-obs verification for surface variables. The Bukovsky regions were created for the analysis of simulations from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. The regions are based on classifications from previous literature, and are based on ecological, climatological, and land characteristics. Results shown here are from running the METplus grid-to-obs use case with the Bukovsky regions for the winter of 2017-2018 and the summer of 2018, in addition to the new proposed verification regions to use for the operational surface grid-to-obs verification.