1 Verification Strategy (Land and Hydrology) Presented By: Brian Cosgrove (NWS/NWC) and Michael Ek (NWS/NCEP/EMC) Contributors: Mark Fresch (NWS/NWC)

2 Operational System Attribute(s) System NameAcronymAreal Coverage Horz ResTime Scales Fcst Length (hr) NWC Hydro Strategy: Develop an operational National Water Center Water Resource Evaluation Service to evaluate inputs/outputs/forcing in an automated, real-time and retrospective fashion WRESCONUS+250m grid 1km grid Points Small catchments (~1- 3km) Sub- Hourly to Seasonal N/A EMC Land Strategy: Retrospective/NLDAS evaluation of energy and water balance fluxes and states. Real-time coupled NWP evaluations of near-surface meteorology, precipitation and RAOBS. NLDAS/GLDAS /Coupled Conus to Global 1km to 13kmHourly to Seasonal N/A SystemAttributes WRES WRES will continually ingest and process real-time forecasts and observations. Verification can be configured to run in a manually initiated or fully automated fashion with both real-time and retrospective components. NLDAS/GLDAS/ Coupled System will perform retrospective and real-time evaluations using in situ and satellite-based observations. System Attributes

3 Why System(s) are Operational  Primary stakeholders and requirement drivers Requirement: timely, objective, and spatially complete real-time and retrospective verification of energy/water budget fluxes, boundary conditions for coupled models, and specialized hydrologic vars (streamflow, stage, inundation depth) Requirements Drivers: Effective use of model output requires knowledge of performance Model improvement (diagnosing sources of errors, guiding development investments) Stakeholders: NWS Regions and forecasters, NCEP Centers, NWC FEMA and local emergency managers Army Corps of Engineers, River Basin Commissions and local water supply agencies  What products are the systems contributing to? Output from the systems will contribute to effective use of output in decision support, the model improvement process, and the establishment of obs networks  What product aspects are you trying to improve with your development plans? Most current land surface/hydrologic verification systems are non-operational, non-automated and limited in scope and application (near-sfc met is exception)  Top 3 System Performance Strengths 1) Broad range of verification data sets, 2) Comprehensive set of verification techniques, 3) Automated, routine real-time operations  Top 3 System Performance Challenges 1) Data scarcity, 2) Data timeliness, 3) Disparity in data formats

4 System Evolution Over the Next 5 Years  Major forcing factors Drive towards fully coupled earth system modeling will only succeed if a robust and versatile real-time and retrospective verification system is created to address inputs and outputs in enough detail not only to assess performance, but to diagnose source of performance issues  Science and development priorities Expansion of data types used for verification Inclusion of broad range of analysis techniques suitable for needs of diverse user base (NWC, EMC, WPC, NOS) Transition of system into real-time operations  What are your top challenges to evolving the system(s) to meet stakeholder requirements? Timely availability of verification data Sub-optimal density of verification data Interoperability of data formats  Potential opportunities for simplification going forward Given the partial overlap in requirements, the opportunity exists to coalesce around verification tools to verify precipitation (WPC), and land surface/hydrologic variables (NWC, EMC, NOS). While mission requirements differ and will necessitate some customizations, efficiencies may be gained by collaborative design, development, and data acquisition between NCEP and the NWC.

5 Top 3 Things You Need From the UMAC 1.Continuation of efforts to eliminate stovepipes across NWS 2.Neutral input into vision of cross-NOAA and interagency modeling strategy 3.Support for links to projects and programs in the broader national and international land surface hydrology community