The High resolution Limited Area version of the Global Environmental Multiscale model and its potential operational applications

The Canadian Meteorological Centre, the Meteorological Research Branch and the regional offices of the Meteorological Service of Canada have collaborated on the development and evaluation of a high resolution version (2.5 km) of GEM-LAM, centred on various locations of Canada for operational and research applications. In this version of the model the convective parameterization is turned off and an explicit microphysical scheme is used. The model is nested using output from the regional operational GEM with 15 km resolution. Subjective evaluation of the model performance has shown an improvement over the regional model's forecast in relation to local forcing, such as topographic and lake effects, and convective activity. Work is also in progress to develop an objective evaluation technique for this high resolution model. Starting this summer two windows, one over southern British Colombia and the other over southern Ontario and Quebec, will be run daily in operational mode for further experimental purposes.