During the last two years, a continental Meso4dvar analysis system has been developed at Environment Canada's research center in Dorval. Its purpose is to produce analyses for short-range (up to 2 days) NWP over the contineltal North American domain using the adjoint variational approach and some basic background error covariances. Many similarities exists with the currently operational 4D-Var analysis system for global NWP but the Meso4dvar system is designed to produce high resolution analyses (typically 35 km horizontal resolution for analysis increments as compared to 185 km for the current global system).

Using this new analysis system, results will be shown on its performance with respect to standard pre-operational evaluation tests.