Composited Local Area Forecast Techniques PDF Download

Author: H. Stuart Muench
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artificial satellites
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description
A previously developed advection forecast technique was modified to include data extracted from satellite imagery. A forecast experiment was then conducted using a data base gathered at AFGL during March 1984. This experiment was designed to test the usefulness of : (a) 3-hour forecast updates, (b) a biquadratic interpolation, and (c) cloud and precipitation information from satellite imagery. The test results confirmed earlier tests in that advection using space-averaged 500-mb winds produced the best overall scores and that in general the scores for 1 - 15 hours were better than persistence. The age of the advection flow (3, 6 or 9 hours old) did not affect forecast score, making updates useful. The biquadratic interpolation procedure produced better fits to observation than bilinear and appears to have improved forecasts. There was but a small benefit from adding satellite information to surface observations when forecasting cloud cover and hourly precipitation. the difficulties of trying to forecast even 30 to 50 percent of the time-change variance suggest that alternative approaches such as mesoscale modeling will be needed for accurate, reliable short-range forecasts.