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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.

Forecast Hour
Product 00 06 12 18 24 Loop
2 meter Temperature 0 6 12 18 24 Loop
2 meter Dew Point 0 6 12 18 24 Loop
Precipitation 0 6 12 18 24 Loop
Sea-Level Pressure and Wind 0 6 12 18 24 Loop
Clouds 0 6 12 18 24 Loop
Convective Parameters 0 6 12 18 24 Loop

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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