Fall 2008
NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed 2008 Spring Experiment
Each spring during the most climatologically active severe weather periods, multi-agency experiments occur at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma. This past spring, scientists from NSSL and the Cooperative Institute of Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) organized and conducted the eighth annual NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Spring Experiment from mid April through early June. As in the past, this year’s experiment attracted participants from a broad cross section of the meteorological community, including numerous government research centers, forecasting offices, universities, and private companies. Participants travelled from near and far to attend the experiment, with several international visitors (see image lower left). The HWT has two separate components, the Experimental Warning Program (EWP) and the Experiment Forecast Program (EFP), each of which conducted independent activities during the Spring Experiment.
Experimental Warning Program
During the 2008 EWP activities, three primary projects were geared toward NWS forecast office severe weather warning operations: 1) evaluation of the phased array radar (PAR) in Norman, 2) evaluation of networked 3-cm radars (CASA) in Central Oklahoma, and 3) evaluation of experimental high temporal and spatial resolution gridded probabilistic hazard information that could form the basis for future severe weather warning products.
Experimental Forecast Program
EFP activities focused on the use of numerical models to improve predictions
of hazardous convective weather phenomena, exploring innovative applications
of convection-allowing configurations of the Weather research and Forecasting
(WRF) model. For example, the utility of the emerging WRF-3DVAR data assimilation
system was assessed, as well as a 10 member convection-allowing WRF ensemble.
Researchers anticipate the results will provide valuable guidance for developers
and users of the WRF model in addition to practitioners in the operational
forecasting community. NOAA's Hazardous Weather Testbed is a joint facility
managed by NSSL, the Storm Prediction Center, and the NWS Oklahoma City/Norman
Weather Forecast Office.
Right: Sample forecasts produced by the Hazardous Weather Testbed teams.