1. Slide 1 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary Forecast Products User Meeting: 14-16 June 2006 Summary

2. Slide 2 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF progress and performance High resolution system introduced 1 February 2006 More accurate analyses and forecasts (especially EPS) Better forecasts of severe weather (structure of tropical cyclones) Very good spring 2006 for Europe (maintain lead over other global forecasts) Substantial improvement in NCEP forecasts for winter 05-06 EPS T399 control closer to T799; EM better at early range; members more skilful; probabilistic scores improved Initial results from verification of smaller scales (e.g. PV) complement synoptic scale verification (Z500 etc)

3. Slide 3 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF progress and performance Weather parameters Better cloud forecasts (new scheme April 05) Improved winds (T799) 2m temperature skill plateau in Europe Slow improvement in precip forecasts High-resolution precipitation analysis – reference level for skill Difficulty of verifying weather parameters representativeness of observations, observation error Increasing model resolution and quality Do the scores give the right signal?

4. Slide 4 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF progress and performance Monthly skilful v persistence for NH Good skill for Indian monsoon, less for W African monsoon Forecast on web (new products – MJO) verification on web, updated each week Seasonal Good skill for tropical SST prediction Atmospheric skill varies with region and season (Europe: temperature skill in summer); tropical cyclone frequency EUROSIP multi-model gives enhanced skill Verification updated annually (this year waiting for obs)

5. Slide 5 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF future developments Model changes – next cycle 31r1 Variational radiance bias correction, AMDAR thinning Implicit convection, cloud ice, orographic drag, improved wind gusts Will be common cycle also for seasonal system 3 and interim reanalysis VAREPS EPS Model uncertainty – new stochastic physics under development Initial uncertainty – research into revised perturbation methods continues Seasonal forecast system 3 Higher resolution, GHG and aerosols, new sea-ice, ocean currents coupled to WAM, improved ocean DA Improved Nino SST forecasts (spring barrier) Improved precip, reduced biases Later - unified medium-range and monthly EPS

6. Slide 6 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF product development - EFI New EFI climate operational from 1 Feb 2006 control re-forecasts (1971-2000) 48h f/c Dynamic – will match model upgrades Allows new parameters (Tmin, Tmax, …) Re-forecasts archived in MARS EFI verification – initial results EFI better than raw probabilities for extremes (calibration needed) Improved scores with new climate EFI for monthly forecast Alternative/complementary measures (SOP, SPS) See latest ECMWF Newsletter www.ecmwf.int/publications/newsletters/

7. Slide 7 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF product development EPS re-forecast for calibration and verification (cf monthly) Initial results: calibration can improve skill compared to using raw EPS data Number of years, number of members tbd Combining deterministic forecast and EPS can improve probabilistic forecasts Representation of probability information – suggestion of possible alternative EPSgrams

8. Slide 8 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary ECMWF data available for research ECMWF makes data available for Research & Education freely or at a handling charge only Restrictions on access to real-time (valid) data For Commercial use, data is also available through Data Services (Archived and Real-time), with additional cost (information charge) Direct access to more than 2 PetaBytes of data in the ECMWF MARS archive using pseudo-meteorological language 1 Terabyte of data online on public data server (including re- analysis ERA-15 and ERA-40 and DEMETER seasonal data) Thorpex Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) archive at ECMWF under development Variety of data formats and delivery methods More information: www.ecmwf.int/products/datawww.ecmwf.int/products/data

9. Slide 9 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary Users: applications Increasing range of applications (public and commercial) – expanded range of weather products Medium-range, monthly, seasonal, archived data, waves Energy, media, transport, marine Oil (tropical cyclones) Health: heat wave medium-range), malaria (seasonal) Drought planning Water management boards – risk profile 50mm in 72h, P>30% important to discuss with users Triggers, alerts for forecasters, shift management New applications – EPS is now thought of first

10. Slide 10 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary Users: New products Automated fronts (including occlusion) Cyclone tracks Derived products for (severe) weather detection, including stability indices and synoptic weather codes/symbols Traffic light maps Risk (severity+probability) Wave rose EPSgrams for wave height

11. Slide 11 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary Users: Downscaling, post-processing Dynamical downscaling EPS used for initial and boundary conditions focus on severe precipitation Growing activity in regional short-range EPS Statistical downscaling EPS calibration - BMA (precipitation difficult) Regimes (Grosswetterlagen) Subjective (forecaster can improve DMO) Tools Statistical downscaling portal Emtool: dressing forecasts (EPS and deterministic) to make PDFs Climate explorer ERA40 is useful resource for post-processing applications

12. Slide 12 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary Users: performance T799 – improvements for severe events Good example of tropical cyclogenesis (T511) EPS products much more accepted with T399 EPS-based early warnings – good skill D1-4, only small drop D5,6 Good probability of high but not extreme values (precip, wind) Monthly skill over Europe weeks 1-3 skill, but week 4 (temperature)? Precipitation difficult to verify

13. Slide 13 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary Users: Performance issues Convective snow (high priority for Met Office – improve parametrization?) Temperature and low cloud (inversion) still problem in winter NCEP temperatures better over Europe last winter Tmin over deep snow can have large errors in some cases (representation of snow cover and depth?) Location of convective rain events in summer can be in error Users find EPS can be helpful with this even in early range

14. Slide 14 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary User comments and requests Dissemination 00 UTC products too late for some operational activity Earlier dissemination of most important products? Forecasts are already disseminated as they are generated (day 1 well before day 10) – see next page for current schedule. Times will be reviewed after next supercomputer upgrade (Phase 4) this year How should EPS be used to derive complex (multi-parameter) indices or drive application models? Drive application with each member and produce pdf of index All EPS members are available for post-processing and user applications Archive of severe events including hindcasts with current model version to use in testing new products and diagnostics

15. Slide 15 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary T799/T399 product availability times Table 1: Dissemination Times for selected key components of the Operation Forecasting System Dissemination Times (in UTC) 29r230r1-HighRes 00 UTC Analysis06:4505:50 00 UTC Medium Range Forecast Day 107:1506:03 00 UTC Medium Range Forecast Day 507:5506:35 00 UTC Medium Range Forecast Day 1008:4507:15 00 UTC EPS Day 109:3908:09 00 UTC EPS Day 509:5508:25 00 UTC EPS Day 1010:1508:45 Monthly Forecast System - HindcastsFriday 12:00Thursday 10:00 Monthly Forecast System - ForecastsFriday 12:00Thursday 22:00

16. Slide 16 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary User comments and requests Verification More for tropics on web Seasonal forecast (will be updated for 2005 soon) Confidence index or significance for scores (under development - some examples shown) ECMWF verification package for external users New verification currently under development; not ready for general use yet

17. Slide 17 Forecast Products User Meeting June 2006 Summary User comments and requests Products More wave data on web Max wind over period (wind gusts are available) Model temp profile (BUFR) Hindcasts/esuite data for calibration Hindcasts are under development Updated EPSgrams – more detail (more quantile info) more parameters Interactive (users choose which parameters to display) Day 1-3 EPSgram with more detail (i.e. 3h time resolution) Metview facility for users to plot EPSgrams for old cases Climate information on plumes, EPSgrams More interactive web plots (clickable, zoomable, choice of parameters)