CWB LAPS History

FY00 (until Sept 2000)

• Set up 5 km windows at FSL and CWB

• Background Model Fields:
  • Regional Model
  • FA Model

• Surface Observations:
  • METAR
  • SYNOP
  • Ship
  • Buoy
  • Mesonet

• Display on AWIPS and the Web

FY01 (until Sept 2001 - $125K)

• Narrowband radar (low-level reflectivity)
  • Ground clutter suppression
• GMS satellite
  • IR data used in FSL test run
  • VIS data partially processed in test mode
• Wideband radar (Wu-fen-Shan)
  • Test runs indicate spurious data and/or remapping
• RAOBs
• ACARS
  • Wind and Temperature being used
• Cloud-drift winds (needs delayed LAPS run)

2002 (IA #14)

• Satellite
  • Turn on use of IR band in CWB cloud analysis
  • Add visible satellite & albedo field
  • Improve visible with terrain albedo database
    • Current analysis does cloud-clearing
    • Accurate sfc albedo can work with VIS + 11 micron cloud-tops for cloud building

• Radars
  • NEXRAD Wideband
    • Complete Wu-fen-shan
  • German Doppler
    • Three radars
    • Reflectivity plus intermittent velocity
  • Reflectivity Mosaic
    • Ingest/Analysis software improvement mostly complete
    • Investigated NSSL mosaic techniques
    • Data compression needed (especially for precip accum)?

• Surface Mesonet
  • Switch from existing minute to hourly data - brings in additional fields
  • Augment with precip network stations

• ACARS
  • Add humidity capability?

• Forecast model
  • Hot Start Taiwan demonstration (run at FSL)

2003 (IA #15)

• Background model
  • Continue to use CWB/NF model as background (state variables)
  • Add other models for background ingest
  • Ground and Sea Surface Temperature (July-September)
    • blended within LGA?

• Various Software upgrades
  • Surface Data Ingest - improve reliability with the various data sources
    • SYNOP (cloud layers improved)
    • Metar
    • Hourly Mesonet
    • Other Mesonet (Agricultural, SHP, CUM)
    • Maritime (Buoy and Ship)
  • Dropsonde Ingest
  • TOVS Ingest
    • check use and accuracy of data in T and Q analyses
  • GPS Ingest
    • software development started
  • Kalman filter (to fill in SYNOP and other 3 hourly obs as needed)
  • Balance package

• Satellite
  • Calibrate visible satellite albedo
  • Transition to new Japanese satellite (use GOES-9 in interim?)
  • Add 3.9 micron ?

• Improve utilization of Doppler Radar - Visitor Dr. Deng (Shiow-ming)
  • Reflectivity QC (polar data)
    • Improved partitioning of radar tilts into volume scans to prevent large reflectivity "bulls-eyes" [Oct 03 - Nov 03]
    • Continuous Line Reflectivity Deleting [Oct 03 - ]
  • Reflectivity QC (cartesian mosaic)
  • Velocity De-aliasing

• Transition analyses/forecasts on LINUX system(s) possibly with nested domains
  • Switch 5km HP runs to 9km LINUX runs, with shadow at FSL
  • Add 15km run (2000x2000km), shadow at FSL?
  • Add 3km run
    • running at FSL and CWB

• Forecast model
  • Refine Hot Start Analysis and transfer to CWB - Visitor Dr. Adan Teng (Apr 03 - Oct 03)
    • improved cloud associated vertical velocity
      • reduced vertical motion in stratiform clouds
      • more updraft extends to the top of convective clouds
      • updraft within radar echoes depends on reflectivity/fall velocity, and convective or stratiform echo structure (with random component also added for convective echoes)
    • improved precipitation concentration (related to fall velocity)