Applications of METplus to NOAA Testbeds to Accelerate Improvements in Short-Term Forecasting of High Impact Events

Verification and validation activities are critical for the success of modelling and prediction efforts at organizations around the world, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US military, commercial entities, and academia. Over a decade ago, the Developmental Testbed Center released a suite of community tools called the Model Evaluation Tools (MET). Under the auspices of the US Next Generation Global Prediction System (NGGPS) program an endeavour was undertaken to develop a comprehensive verification capability for the Unified Forecast System based on MET. Development of this extended capability, called METplus, started in 2015. The METplus system consists of several components, including a C++/Fortran code-base (MET), for the computation of verification statistics based on gridded forecasts and either a gridded analysis or point-based observations. The system also incorporates a database and display system (METviewer) for aggregating statistics and plotting graphical results. These tools are designed to be highly flexible to allow for quick adaption to meet additional evaluation and diagnostic needs. A suite of python wrappers have been implemented to facilitate a quick set-up and implementation of the system, and to enhance the pre-existing plotting capabilities.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research/Research Applications Laboratory (NCAR/RAL) currently has two US Weather Research Program (USWRP) research-to-operations (R2O) projects that are focused on integrating METplus into NOAA testbeds, the Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) and the Hydrometeorology Testbed (HMT). While the prediction of precipitation is common to both testbeds, each also explores the use of forecasts fields that are specific to the prediction of severe weather and intense precipitation events respectively. This presentation will highlight the evaluation synergies and specific applications of METplus to help these testbeds improve the R2O process.