Evaluation of Multiple Analysis Systems in the 2019 HWT Spring Forecasting Experiment

For the first time in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Spring Forecasting Experiment (SFE), formal comparisons of different mesoscale analysis systems were conducted. The analyses examined were the SPC surface objective analysis (sfcOA) based on the operational RAP, the three-dimensional Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis (3D-RTMA) upscaled to the sfcOA 40-km grid, the 3D-RTMA on its native 3-km grid, the 15-km High Resolution Rapid Refresh Ensemble (HRRRE) mean, and the 3-km Warn-on Forecast System (WoFS) ensemble mean. Web-based comparison displays of 2-m temperature, 2-m dewpoint, and CAPE fields were used for the evaluation, with color-coded dots used to depict local differences between observations and the analysis fields.

Each day participants in the HWT SFE reviewed the different analysis systems for the period between 18 and 03 UTC from the previous convective day. Targeted questions about these analysis systems were posed to the SFE participants, especially with regard to replacing the SPC sfcOA as a real-time situational awareness tool for monitoring the threat of severe convective weather. The subjective results of the survey and feedback from the SFE participants will be presented along with a preliminary overview of the objective verification statistics. The subjective and objective results indicate that the native resolution 3D-RTMA was the highest-quality analysis system examined during the 2019 HWT SFE.