Significant Errors in Numerical Weather Predictions Prior to the New Year's Day 2006 Southern Plains Wildfire Outbreak

An intense drought over the Southern Plains contributed to devastating wildfires in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas during the winter of 2005/06. A widespread outbreak of damaging wind-driven wildfires accompanied the passage of a strong middle latitude cyclone on New Year's Day. The combination of damaging winds, blinding dust, smoke, and wildfires resulted in 2 deaths and nearly 20 injuries during the holiday weekend. Two communities in Texas were virtually destroyed, more than 300,000 acres of prairie were burned, and property losses exceeded $25 million. Prior to this high-impact event, numerical weather prediction models provided poor guidance for a number of meteorological fields used in fire weather forecasts. This study surveyed significant errors in five operational model solutions initialized within 72 hours of the outbreak as documented by meteorologists involved in the forecast process. Comparisons of output from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction's Global Forecast System and the North American Mesoscale model with observed conditions at Lubbock, Texas, revealed underestimates in model-derived forecasts for sustained 10 m wind speeds by up to 8 m s^-1 and overestimates of 2 m relative humidity values of 25%. The models also failed to resolve a frontal passage that adversely affected firefighting operations at two major wildfire burn sites.