Real-Time Workstation Eta Products for Spain/North Africa
Sea level pressure and surface wind loop now available! 2 September 2003
Click on the links below to display the forecast products.
Note: These are experimental products and the timely receipt of products is not
guaranteed.
About SMG's workstation Eta run
The Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) is responsible for issuing forecasts for the
Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) sites including Zaragoza (Spain), Moron (Spain), and
Ben Guerir (Morocco). In order to improve the accuracy of forecasts, SMG is
evaluating the performance of the workstation Eta over Spain and North Africa.
The Workstation Eta model is currently run once per day to produce a 24-hour
forecast. The 00 UTC Aviation (AVN) model is used to intialize the workstation
Eta model and provide boundary conditions (every 3 hours) through the forecast run.
The grid configuration is 75 (lat) by 121 (lon) by 45 vertical levels with a horizontal
resolution of about 22 km (DLMD and DPHD equal 0.147). The time step was set to 30 seconds.
The Kain-Fritsch cumulus parameterization scheme is used.
Output is produced for 0, 3, 6, ..., 21, and 24 hour forecasts. The model output is
converted to GRIB and GEMPAK formats. The GRIB format is transferred to the SMG
AWIPS system. The GEMPAK format (displayable with GARP) is used to create these
graphics images of the output.
Verification
SMG is currently developing an objective verification scheme. Results
will be displayed here in the near future. Some subjective observations regarding
the performance of the workstaion Eta noted so far include:
- The model successfully depicts an increase in the wind speed at
Ben Guerir just after dark that has recently been noted in the observations.
- There is a tendency to show broken clouds in the valley near Zaragoza
with northwesterly flow that does not occur. The clouds appear as a thin finger
trapped in the valley in the model output with no other clouds depicted.
- Topography is off by about 200m near Zaragoza which may lead to wind and
temperature forecast errors.
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