Chopping the FAR

Afternoons in the SFE are composed of three main parts: A Day 2 forecast, evaluations of various aspects of the CAMs, and updates to the morning forecasts. Sometimes, very little new information contributes to these updates, particularly if convection has not initiated by the time of the update. Other days, convective initiation or intensification has occurred, and we have a much better concept of how the convection will evolve. Yesterday was an excellent example of how the afternoon updates can improve upon the morning forecasts, once we get a sense of the evolution.

Data Driven

Well, we have arrived at the fifth and final week of SFE 2016. By this point in the experiment, the facilitators are mostly used to the rhythm of the testbed, knowing what observational data and model guidance we'll go over each day. By the end of the week, participants are generally used to the fast pace of the experiment as well. However, the first day of each week provides some reminders as to how much we're throwing at the participants. I thought that tonight, I'd provide a brief rundown of what we consider when making our full period outlooks each day, which run from 16Z of any given day to 12Z the following day.