Enhancements to the AWIPS Ensemble Tool for NWS National Centers

The Ensemble Tool developed by NOAA Global Systems Division has been installed on the AWIPS workstations in all 120 NWS Warning and Forecast Offices. It allows forecasters to browse ensemble forecast solutions, select alternative scenarios to the published forecast, estimate event probabilities, and calculate mean and spread. These are activities that enable science-enriched decision support to WFO forecast consumers.

The National Centers for Environmental Prediction have a different weather forecasting mission, and present different requirements of the ET. Discussions have begun to consider possible new features of the ET to support National Center operations. At some point this may include cluster analysis, member weighting, and product preformatting. But first in priority is access to the ECMWF ensemble grids. This dataset is not broadcast on SBN and is thus not supported in the fielded ET, but it is available to NCs. GSD has initiated a project to import ensemble grids from non-SBN sources into the ET, starting with the ECMWF. In our presentation we expect to show examples of the ECMWF ensemble data being used via the ET, and we will review the software upgrades that enabled it.