The Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) declared fine-scale forecast initial capability using the Pennsylvania State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU/NCAR) Mesoscale Model Version 5 on 29 Oct 1997. The MM5 at that time was producing cloud water forecasts for the Bosnian theater and over the CONtinental United States (CONUS). Since that time, AFWA has rapidly expanded its production architecture and now has the model running over Alaska, Central America (inner nest Honduras), Europe (with inner nest Bosnia), Southwest Asia (one inner nest), CONUS (with three inner nests), and Southeast Asia (inner nest Korea). AFWA routinely runs an additional window (relocatable) to support short-term contingencies, Presidential support, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space shuttle launches. The outer nests have a nominal grid spacing of 36 km in resolution and the inner nests are 12 km. The model extends over 33 vertical levels through 100 mb. Forecasts extend to 48 hours for the outer nests, and from 6 to 30 hours for the inner nests.
The AFWA models and technology exploitation branches have been working with forecasters and operational units worldwide to develop and refine new MM5 products. As of July 1998 nearly 30,000 MM5 products including meteograms are produced during each forecast cycle (two cycles per day), and are made available to worldwide customers via the Agency's World Wide Web site. Customers can view products on the web or capture products from the AFWA FTP server (classified and unclassified operations). At first, low level wind, precipitation, and relative humidity products were developed for support to Army operations. Then products depicting absolute humidity, upper level dew point depression (for upper level clouds), MSL and AGL winds, and deviations from standard pressure heights (D-values) were developed for aviators. A wide variety of thunderstorm parameters (LI, Total Totals, CAPE, etc.) help forecasters pinpoint severe weather. AFWA has worked recently with the AF and Army Research Labs to develop and implement new icing, turbulence and surface visibility algorithms.
As MM5 continues to be used for operational purposes, AFWA will refine products based on both seasonal and geographical locations. The overall goal is to keep on improving resolution (temporal and spatial) for the various missions that AF Weather supports around the world.
The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology