Evaluation of the National Severe Storms Laboratory Mesoscale Ensemble

Accurate short-term forecasts are important to forecasters when anticipating severe weather events and improving such forecasts has long been a focus for meteorologists. The recent emergence of ensemble based data-assimilation systems has proven to be a promising step toward improving forecasts of mesoscale environments in which severe storms form. The National Severe Storms Laboratory Mesoscale Ensemble (NME) is a 36-member ensemble that provides hourly analyses and forecasts of a variety of products used for severe weather forecasting, such as model soundings and other derived severe weather parameters. This project seeks to quantitatively evaluate said products through comparison to observations from a number of sources (surface stations, rawinsondes, etc.), including the Oklahoma and Texas mesonets.