A Tool for Evaluating Modeling Studies of Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification

Objective evaluation of numerical weather experiments of planned and inadvertent weather modification can be crucial to understanding their output as well as in-situ observations from the field. The Model Evaluation Tools (MET) software was designed by the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) to provide the numerical weather prediction community with quality software incorporating the latest advances in forecast verification.

The recent addition of probabilistic and ensemble verification capabilities to the MET software have led to innovation demonstrations in the verification activities of two QPF projects in the United States. The 2010 NOAA Hydrometeorology Testbed (HMT) West project conducted an experiment examining cool season extreme precipitation events. Alternatively, prediction of convective precipitation was one focus of the Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) 2010 Spring Experiment.

This presentation will briefly discuss examples from these projects to demonstrate MET's traditional and object-based verification of QPF, simulated reflectivity, and satellite fields. It will also demonstrate objective evaluation of real-time forecasts from the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Project.