The Use of Interactive Graphics Processing in Short-Range Terminal Weather Forecasting: An Initial Assessment.
Abstract
The products judged most useful in preparing short-range terminal forecasts included (1) a station model time series display, (2) conventional geographic data displays presented simultaneously as four quadrant panels guidance on one screen, (3) mesoscale surface objective analyses, and (4) a forecast guidance prodecure based on 2-D upper-air trajectories and sensible weather algorithms based on imagery from the GOES satellite. The importance of half-hourly visible and IR imagery from the GOES satellite in short-range terminal forecasting was confirmed in this experiment. The participating forecasters relied more heavily on it to prepare their forecasts than any other source. The manipulation of digital imagery in a computer-based interactive graphic system through time-series looping, color enhancements, and overlaying conventional plots and analyses on it, provides a wealth of qualitative and quantitative guidance for forecasting. The numerical forecasts yielded superior rms errors compared to persistence at all forecast intervals except 1 h. At 4 h, the improvement over persistence ranged from about 21 percent for wind forecasts to about 34 percent for total cloud amount, while the 6-h quantitative precipitation forecasts yielded a 39 percent improvement.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 31, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA137165
Entities
People
- A. J. Jackson
- C. F. Ivaldi
- D. A. Chisholm
- M. E. Niedzielski
- R. Schechter
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory