1. Forecast Pressure

2. Pressure Observations
ASOS is the best…the gold standard
Ships generally the worst

5. ASOS Pressure Sensor

6. High-Resolution Can Greatly Improve Pressure Forecasts Near Terrain

11. He S
12-km

12. Pressure Reduction

13. Major Problem is Pressure Reduction: For BOTH Analyses and Forecasts
Model pressure fields at sea level and geopotential heights at lower levels (e.g., 925 hPa) are based on assuming a 6.5 K per km lapse rate through the ground (also called the Shuell method)
Can give deceiving or WACKY results

14. At Night During Warm Season: phony troughs under terrain during night

15. Why?
During night the atmosphere can become more stable than U.S. Standard Atmosphere at low levels.
Thus, starting with the same temperature at crest level, the low level air is colder over the lowlands, where no reduction is occurring, producing lower pressure.

16. During the day, phony trough inland
Fig. 5. Composites of sea level pressure (solid lines, hPa) and 1000-hPa temperature (color shading, °C) using the (left) Shuell and (right) Mesinger methods for JJA at 0000 UTC.

17. Why?
During day, the atmosphere over the central valley is near dry adiabatic (9.8 C per km), while over the mountains we assume U.S. Standard atmosphere valley (6.5C per km).
Becomes cooler at low levels inside the mountains…thus higher pressure.

18. Although model improvements have occurred, major pressure errors sometimes occur

19. An example of a short-term forecast error
Eta 24-h
03 March 00UT 1999
Eta 48-h
03 March 00UT 1999

20. 48-hr Forecasts Valid 00 UTC 8 February 2002
AVN
ETA
UKMO
NOGAPS

21. 24-Hr Forecasts Valid 00 UTC 8 February 2002
AVN
ETA
UKMO
NOGAPS

22. Station Locations
Tatoosh Is.
Cape Arago

23. TTI, WA 24 h Coastal Errors Cape Arago, OR Large Errors
Inter-annual variability

24. 48-h Errors
48h errors much larger and frequent than 24-h errors

25. GFS vs. NAM
24-h errors
NCEP GFS better than NAM on average

26. 48-h errors
Eta under forecasts
GFS over forecasts

27. The NCEP GFS has more skillful cyclone intensity and position forecasts than the NAM over the continental United States and adjacent oceans, especially over the eastern Pacific, where the NAM has a large positive (underdeepening) bias in cyclone central pressure.
For the short-term (0–60 h) forecasts, the GFS and NAM cyclone errors over the eastern Pacific are larger than the other regions to the east.

28. SLP analysis (a)MAEand (b)MEfor the stations from west to east in Fig
SLP analysis (a)MAEand (b)MEfor the stations from west to east in Fig. 1 for the GFS (solid black), NAM (dashed), and NARR (gray). The numbers of cyclones verified between 2002 and 2007 are shown in the parentheses. The dashed horizontal lines represent the average error during the period and the 90% confidence intervals are shown using the vertical bar on the right.

30. Summary
Large variations in quality of pressure observations (ASOS the best)
Large semi-diurnal signal
Difficult parameter for human intervention…need to pick best model.
Resolution helps considerable in terrain.
Major pressure errors still exist.
Pressure reduction is a major problem, BOTH for analyses AND forecasts.

31. 2012 Update
Some smartphones are measuring pressure information and one company is starting to collect it.
Experimentation with more effective use of pressure information for model data assimilation.