The WRF Verification Toolkit (WVT)

The WRF Verification Toolkit (WVT) is a highly-configurable forecast verification package freely available to the WRF user community. The initial release of the package, available this June, includes capabilities for both grid-to-point and grid-to-grid verification methods. The verification methods included provide traditional verification statistics as well as improved forecast verification techniques, including information about uncertainty in the traditional statistics (via confidence intervals) and the Method for Object-based Diagnosis and Evaluation (MODE) tool. Some simple plotting capabilities supporting the toolkit are also provided.

In the future, the toolkit will provide expanded capabilities based on recommendations from both the WRF-user and forecast verification communities through controlled version releases. Long-range plans for the system will provide increased functionality. This may include support for the verification of ensemble forecasts, the inclusion of statistics that account for observational error, and expanded spatial verification methods, such as the Ebert-McBride Contiguous Rain Area (CRA) technique. Although initially developed for the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) through the generous support of the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this toolkit provides the WRF user community with a quality forecast verification tool for evaluating model performance.