The Continued Development of the NOAA RTMA/URMA Systems

The Real Time Mesoscale Analysis and the UnRestricted Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA and URMA, respectively) provide hourly 2D analyses of near surface variables and precipitation for CONUS, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Guam. RTMA products are distributed in support of applications toward situational awareness and the URMA plays a critical role in NOAA’s National Blend of Models project via calibration and verification. Recent upgrades of the RTMA/URMA system include the addition of significant wave height, hourly precipitation analyses over CONUS and Puerto Rico, the continued addition of new observations, and more. A new rapidly updating RTMA (RU-RTMA) has also been introduced to the RTMA/URMA suite. RU-RTMA provides an updated analysis every 15 minutes over CONUS in support of the aviation community.

At the time of writing, aggressive development is underway toward improving several aspects of the system to address user concerns and noted biases. This includes, but is not limited to, changes to the background error model to contain a representation of flow dependence as well as continued enhancements to observation quality control. In addition, a method for nimble blacklisting of bad observations through user engagement is in progress.

Recent upgrades, including RU-RTMA, as well as near term plans and progress will be discussed. Longer term plans toward the development of a 3D RTMA/URMA system with sub-hourly updates will also be presented.

This material is based upon work supported by the Federal Aviation Administration. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Aviation Administration.