Weather has important effects on the operations of the United States Army. The Army desires very high-resolution analyses and forecasts for operations in the battlefield. This requires an analysis and modeling system that ingests real time weather data and produces forecasts for small scale phenomena. The Mesoscale Model 5th Generation (MM5) and the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) have data ingest capabilities but are principally used to forecast mesoscale and larger phenomena. Here, MM5 and WRF forecasts at relatively high resolution are examined through a statistical comparison of surfaces winds, temperature, and moisture.

At 3 km resolution, the MM5 and WRF were able to generate variances in forecast fields that were in agreement with observations. WRF output demonstrated better agreement with 10 meter zonal and meridional observed winds than did MM5 output. Variance results suggest improved nighttime forecast accuracy in WRF and MM5 for winds and temperature compared to daytime forecasts; however, nighttime forecasts of specific humidity did not compared as well as daytime forecasts.