December 4, 2013 NCEP Product Suite Usage in the Private Sector Brian Kolts Energy Delivery – Environmental 2013 Production Review National Weather Service NCEP

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 2 Outline n Introduction to FirstEnergy n SREF and Hi-Res WRF Usage at FirstEnergy n Wish List n Questions and Answers

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 3 About FirstEnergy (FE) n Headquartered in Akron, Ohio n One of the largest investor-owned electric systems in the U.S. based on 6 million customers served n Nearly $47 billion in assets n $16 billion in annual revenues n Approximately 23,000 megawatts of generating capacity n 10 electric utility operating companies in six states n 65,000-square-mile service area n 20,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and approximately 281,000 miles of distribution lines Learn more by visiting Natural Gas Coal Nuclear 10% 6% 18% 64% 2% Oil Hydro/ Wind A Balanced Fuel Mix

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 4 Need for Internal Meteorological Support n Assess the atmosphere’s impact on FirstEnergy –Physical: Personnel (safety) and property (reliability/cash) –Financial: Capitol strategies (resource management) n Assess FirstEnergy’s impact on the atmosphere –FirstEnergy’s environmental footprint (air quality) present and future

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 5 Primary Weather Concerns - Impact Weather n High winds n Ice n Snow, especially wet snow on leaves n Lightning n Temperature extremes n Flooding Power Disruptions Caused By: Address Safety, Reliability and Resource Management Issues: n Pre-staging of resources (crews, wires and poles) n Also extra staffing required to meet anticipated increase in customer call volume

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 6 How NCEP Products Support FirstEnergy NCO – Production, NAWIPS software EMC – Model runs (image), QPE gribs, archived data SPC – Convective outlooks, storm reports, archived data HPC – Model discussions, QPF gribs NHC – Tropical System Guidance, archive data CPC – Long range, climate index monitoring, archived data SWPC – Space Weather Alerts OPC – Not yet utilized

SREF, GFS, NAM Snowfall (f36) for March 24 th 2013 December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 7 SREF GFS 30% SREF Mean 70% GFS NAM

Observed snowfall (from LSR/PNS info) December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 8

We are now only using a 15 member SREF ensemble n We are only using the em (ARW) control member – we have excluded the remaining em members so as to not overweith the SREF towards the GFS n We have seen success with this through the convective season and we are just beginning to use this with winter events. December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 9

11/26 – 11/27 Snow Event SREF(15) Fhour48 December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review ”

December 5, NCEP Production Suite Review 11 NAM 04 km (10- 12”) NAM ARWE (10-12”) NAM NMME (12-15”) FE WRF 4km (10-12”)

SREF(1 member), GEM, NAM, GFS, GCMC Blend Snow/Ice Accumulation December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 12

27 Nov 2013 Observed Snow Totals December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 13

November 17 th Severe Event December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 14

SREF(15) Convective Wind Gust Potential December45, NCEP Production Suite Review 15

SREF(15) Maximum Non-Convective Gust Potential December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 16

Nov Max Recorded Wind Speeds December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 17

June 12 th Derecho December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 18

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 19 NAM ARWE NAM NMME FE WRF Obs Radar 1000m Synthetic Reflectivity Forecast at fhours 36/42

Summary/Wish List n We would like to thank EMC for all of your products and hard work, and for allowing FirstEnergy to participiate in this review. n We would like to thank Geoff Manikin for conducting the weekly MEG meetings – we have found these extremely valuable. n While we use nearly all EMC products, we are especially heavy users of SREF and the Hi-Res WRF runs. n We are looking for the forthcoming updates to the SREF. We wish we had been able to access the current parallel members. n We would like to see Rime Factor available in all models. n We look forward to opportunities to work with NOAA in the future. December4, NCEP Production Suite Review 20

December 4, NCEP Production Suite Review 21 Peter Manousos Brian Kolts

December 5, NCEP Production Suite Review 22 SREF Application – Winter Precipitation n Simple approach – multiply three hour melted QPF by precip type (binary flag at every fhr for snow, rain, sleet and freezing rain) n Three hour components summed (GEMPAK) to create the following for each precip type (every cycle) –Three hour totals –“Model run” totals –Running 24 hour totals n Will improve when one hour SREF output utilized n Examples of wind and snow loops will follow the verification plots

December 5, NCEP Production Suite Review 23 SREF Application – Wind (Non-Convective) n Momentum Transfer Method (BUFKIT) approach applied to each SREF member n “Height of gust layer” found when (working from surface upward) the lapse rate becomes greater than 70% of that for a standard atmosphere (~-4.5 deg /km too stable to mix beyond this threshold) n Within this layer two parameters are calculated: –“Typical gust” (mean of the wind speed in the gust layer) –“Max gust” (max wind speed in the gust layer) n Assessed from surface to 700mb for every member at every grid point for every forecast hour (GEMPAK) and every cycle n Very powerful tool for pre-storm planning

December 5, NCEP Production Suite Review 24 Meteorology and Energy/Air Quality Policy n Air quality standards have tightened while power demand increases n Modeling used to determine best path forward n EPA regulatory and regional models driven by meteorology