GSD's Short-term GFE Point Blender

The National Weather Service Weather Ready Nation Roadmap within the Forecast Decision Support Environment section calls for better forecaster efficiency when updating the short-term forecast (0-12 hours). In response, the Global Systems Division (GSD) has developed a gridpoint-based model guidance blending technique to improve short-term forecast quality. GSD's Short-term Point Blender archives model guidance and observational grids out of the AWIPS Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) database and assesses the performance of each model at each gridpoint over the NWS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) domain. Short-term forecast grids are then generated using a weighting scheme derived from that model's performance at each gridpoint. By blending point-by-point, this technique has shown to produce more accurate forecasts than other methods that measure performance as a single value over the entire domain. The GFE Point Blender compliments the the National Blend of Global Models Project being undertaken at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction which plans to provides forecasts for the 3-8 day period.

Ongoing testing shows promise with the new technique generally providing a more accurate forecast than any of its model components. Furthermore, it is very configurable with regard to what models are archived and used in the blend as well as the analysis or “truth” data set which ultimately determines accuracy. Most recently this technique has been extended into a framework that allows for many more guidance combinations as well as a range of methods to correct bias and calculate error. Using this framework users will be able to explore additional blending and verification techniques.