NSSL/SPC Spring Forecasting Experiment Blog: 05/19/2013

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Reflections

5/20/13
I couldnt stop watching the news, maybe because I want to see these dedicated rescuers have a small victory by finding survivors. Especially at these schools. Schools. We don't know if these estimates are accurate. [Update: They were not.] We can only hope that some of these families find their loved ones amidst this chaos.

About the NSSL Spring Experiment

The NOAA HWT Spring Forecasting Experiment is a yearly experiment that investigates the use of convection-allowing model forecasts as guidance for the prediction of severe convective weather. A variety of model output is examined and evaluated daily during the experiment and experimental severe weather forecasts are created and verified. The variety of model output allows us to explore different types of guidance, including products derived from both ensembles and deterministic forecasts.

The 2018 Spring Forecasting Experiment will be held from April 30th through June 1st in the HWT facility at the National Weather Center in Norman. The Experiment is scheduled to run Monday through Friday from 8am to 4pm. The Experiment will continue the focus on probabilistic forecast generation over shorter time periods than current Storm Prediction Center operational products. A major effort has been made to coordinate convection-allowing ensemble configurations between contributing agencies, resulting in a Community Leveraged Unified Ensemble (CLUE) containing 81 members with 3 km grid spacing. This ensemble will be used heavily in the forecast process and be used in verification exercises to compare different ensemble design strategies. More information about the unique CLUE members can be found in the 2017 Operations Plan.