Change log - 20km operational RUC at NCEP - Apr 2002 - May 2005
17 April 2002 - 1200 UTC
Operational implementation of 20km RUC. 40km RUC-2 stops running at this point.
24 September 2002 - 1200 UTC
HYBPOST
These changes are primarily for BUFR output, including rotating winds to
earth-relative (10m, profiler, storm-relative), setting 1h precip
properly (instead of 3h precip on every 3rd hour), and using
2m temps, pressure, and elevation from the RUC 'topomini'
file (see http://ruc.fsl.noaa.gov/forum/eval20/?read=1053).
The ceiling (cloud base) calculation now properly uses the
snow mixing ratio, as well as those of cloud water ice.
Also, the precipitation type now properly includes sub-grid-scale precipitation (it did not before).
1 October 2002 - 1200 UTC
HYBCSTSP
Land-surface model fixes for thin snow cover. Fix to shortwave
radiation cooling/heating in atmosphere.
HYBPOST
Fix so that precip type arrays output on 40km
grid are not smoothed, thus avoiding substantial loss to
areal coverage.
9 January 2003 - 2000 UTC
HYBPOST
A fix was made today (by Geoff Manikin and NCEP/NCO)
to correct the date stamp in the RUC BUFR files.
The stamp had been running 1 day ahead since January 1.
The problem was in a data statement for January, and
since the new format for these files began last April,
it wasn't until our first January with the RUC20 that the problem
surfaced.
27 May 2003 - 1200 UTC
HYBFRONT - 3-d variational analysis
A 3-d variational (3DVAR) analysis was implemented
replacing the previous optimal interpolation (OI) analysis.
Details in http://ruc.fsl.noaa.gov/forum/eval20/?read=1121
and in a TPB at
http://ruc.fsl.noaa.gov/ppt_pres/RUC-3dvar-tpb-May03.htm.
HYBPOST
Added 0-1km helicity and fixed some other products
in post processing -- described in
http://ruc.fsl.noaa.gov/ppt_pres/RUC-3dvar-tpb-May03.htm.
8 July 2003 - 1900 UTC
Script producing RUC BUFR files
A fix was made today (by Geoff Manikin and NCEP/NCO)
to correct a bug in this script which had resulted in the
use of the early 'A' RUC analysis run at 0000 and 1200 UTC
before most of the rawinsonde is available. Now the BUFR data
uses the correct RUC 'B" analysis including the rawinsonde
data. The 'B" analysis is the initial condition for
RUC model runs at 0000/1200.
BUFR station list
A few stations were added to the BUFR station list,
also added at the same time to the Eta BUFR station list.
24 Sept 2003 - 1500 UTC
HYBFRONT - gtresids_sfc_tquv.f, hybhqc.f
A couple of modifications to the 3DVAR initialization were implemented at 15Z today (24 Sep):
- Data from land observational sites located at model water grid points will now be flagged. An example of
problems associated with this data being assimilated by the model is shown at
http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/gmanikin/ruccase/ruc_2mtcheck.gif In this example, data is available at
Houghton, Michigan (located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, extending from the Upper Peninsula into Lake
Superior). This peninsula is not resolved by the RUC, so the first guess for that location is colder and drier
(consistent with a water point in that region) than the observation. A positive increment (difference between
observation and first guess) is therefore created by the analysis code and is spread inland, causing
unreasonably high temperature and especially dew point values inland over the U.P. It was determined that
data from approximately 30 such land stations located at model water grid points will need to be flagged.
- The second change is to tighten the thresholds in the quality control checks. Some bad data, particularly
moisture observations, has been getting into the analysis, and limiting the permissible difference between the
observed value and first guess will reduce the frequency of occurrence.
6 Oct 2003 - 1300 UTC
HYBPOST - hb2mw.f
Fix max wind level diagnostic to prevent intermittent
spurious wind max values. The spline interpolation used sometimes
can give wild extrapolation from RUC native levels that are very
close together. This code fix constrains the spline value to
be within 3% of the native level wind max, and adds some other
constraints.
11 Oct 2003 - 0000 UTC
HYBETABC (HYBEXT) - (grdtr3d.f)
Fix interpolation routine for interpolating Eta grids to
RUC vertical/horizontal grid for boundary conditions. Under a
certain rare condition, a divide by zero could occur, so this
possibility was eliminated by adding a line of code. A crash
that occurred in the 12z 10 Oct run was fixed by this change.
9 Dec 2003 - 1400 UTC
HYBFRONT - (rd_cld.f,hybctp.f)
A
change was made to the operational RUC at NCEP today to fix a
cloud assimilation error. Cloud was inadvertently being
cleared in situations with partial cloud cover in the GOES data in
the proximity of a grid point. The overall impact is fairly minor.
14 April 2004 - 1200 UTC
Major change package, including changes to HYBCST ,
HYBPOST, HYBCST_PRE, and HYBFRONT.
Changes in package described
here
26 April 2004 - 1600 UTC
RUC analysis changes made on 14 April as part of
change package were pulled today due to intermittent
moisture/CAPE noise in analysis fields.
28 September 2004 - 1200 UTC
Revised version of RUC analysis implemented, including
a revised and more robust version of PBL-based assimilation
of surface observations. Also includes constraints
for moisture and temperature increments (correction to
background) and innovations (obs-minus-background) to
improve coherence in analysis fields.
More information available
here
19 Jan 2005 - 1800 UTC
Fix to treatment of Eta/NAM data in RUC boundary
condition code to avoid problem with non-physical
lapse rate near surface. See RUC forum for more.
3 Feb 2005 - 1900 UTC
At this time, recovered
RUC analysis version with 28 Sept 04 changes.
Due to an inadvertent problem with the switch
of NCEP Central Operations to a new computer on
25 Jan 05, an older version had been implemented.
Today, the 28 Sept 04 version was reinstated.
condition code to avoid problem with non-physical
17 Feb, ~18 Mar 2005
Soil moisture updates.
Background 1h forecast copied from FSL to NCEP
to update soil moisture, which has become too dry
at NCEP. The FSL RUC runs includes a soil
temp/moisture nudging procedure, to be included
in the RUC13, which greatly reduces this problem.
8 March 2005 - 1700 UTC
GETBUFR - getbufr.f - Fix to observation handling
problem in case with raob with wind but not mass data
data. In this case, winds were being assigned to
incorrect station. This was a rare event --
see RUC forum.
18 March 2005 - 1500 UTC
HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f - Fix to avoid
multivariate height solution when no wind or
height available.