NASA-SPoRT Methodology for JPSS and GOES-R Proving Ground Assessments

Toward NASA-SPoRT's (Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center) objectives of transitioning Proving Ground products to operations, SPoRT has completed a number of assessments of experimental JPSS and GOES-R Proving Ground products at various stages in their development. These intense, short-duration observation periods are streamlined to facilitate close collaboration with product developers and forecasters from a limited number of offices with similar forecast needs, amassing swift feedback for the developers and minimal interference for forecasters.

The JPSS product assessments comprise two assessments and showcase the capabilities of the Day-Night Band, seen for the first time by some forecasters during these assessments. The VIIRS Nighttime assessment focused on four National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices of our “Front-Range Collaboration”, assessing VIIRS single-swath and RGB products, such as DNB RGBs, Dust, and Nighttime Microphysics, particularly focusing on fire weather applications. The Cloud Detection Assessment occurred in the Fall, assessed the same products, and specifically assessed low cloud and fog detection using VIIRS products. These assessments of newer products achieve a dual purpose of exposing the forecast community to recently available NASA and NOAA dataset and derived products as well as determining the utility and possible new applications of these products in operations.

The GOES-R product assessments include three separate evaluations: two involving NESDIS GOES-R Quantitative Precipitation Estimate (QPE) and one involving UAH GOES-R Convective Initiation (CI), a product developed by the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The UAH GOES-R CI evaluation occurred in late Summer, and was the third time NASA-SPoRT has hosted an evaluation of a radically new version of this product, demonstrating the iterative “forecaster feedback->incremental improvement” approach achieved by NASA-SPoRT's assessment paradigm. NESDIS GOES-R QPE, new this year to NASA-SPoRT's transition partners, was evaluated alongside CIRA Layered Precipitable Water on the West Coast in Spring and in Alaska and Puerto Rico in Summer. Contrasting to CI, the QPE product is earlier in the feedback cycle, and this year's assessments garnered a number of case studies, via formal survey feedback and email communications, from a variety of locations and environments that will assist the product development team at NESDIS in improving GOES-R QPE.