3/6/2007 The UWME+ system was extended to 72 h forecast lead time and set to run for both 00 and 12 UTC cycles beginning with the 2007030512 UTC forecast.8/23/05 The UWME system was extended to 72 h forecast lead time beginning with the 2005082312 UTC forecast cycle.6/30/2005 Ensemble member graphics were updated to match those of the deterministic UW MM5-GFS run, beginning with the 2005063000 UTC forecast cycle. Also, several subtle improvements to the web-page functionality were made.1/25/2005 The UWME system has undergone several major changes. Beginning with the 2005012512 UTC forecast cycle, all UWME and UWME centroid MM5 forecasts are using:
Reisner II microphysics CCM2 radiation with a modified effective ice radius NCEP's RUC 20-km soil moisture initialization Dump-bucket soil moisture scheme during the runs
The Linux cluster running the UWME system has been upgraded and re-configured. Each run now takes about 1.5 hours wall-clock time on 8 Intel Xeon CPUs using MPI. The last UWME member usually finishes by around 0840/2040 UTC. The UWME centroid, mean and spread, and raw probability products are typically available around 0900/2100 UTC.
The UWME+ system is currently unchanged (although production may be moved slightly earlier due to reduced load). Work is commencing now to update the UWME+ system and details will be available when the system is ready.4/27/2004 The UWME system has undergone two major changes. Beginning with the 2004042712 UTC forecast cycle, all UWME, UWME+, and centroid MM5 forecasts are using nudging on the 36 km domain. Additionally, beginning with this same date, the UWME is running full 48 hour MM5 forecasts on the 12 UTC forecast cycle. No change in naming or web availability has been made.1/02/2004 The UWME ensemble is up and running again. Other runs will follow. Derived products should be available in a few days.12/05/2003 After six weeks, most of the data has been recovered. However, some data was lost. The ensemble runs will be restored ASAP, but with some changes. These changes include dropping the mirrored runs permanently and renaming the system accordingly. We've adopted UWME, the UW Mesoscale Ensemble. UWME+ will refer to the perturbed-model ensemble (previously called ACMEcore+). Also there will be a new location for the website (www.atmos.washington.edu/~ens/uwme.cgi).10/24/2003 Catastrophic failure of the disk storage system occurred making the ensemble runs impossible.7/27/2003 Discontinued operational mirrored member runs, updated web page, and changed cron jobs to run postprocessing for the PHYS ensemble, not ACME. EG4/3/2003 Changed probability calculation method from democratic voting to uniform ranks. This provides a better approximation to the probability that is also continuous and spatially smoother. For research applications, complete cases of archived probability files were rerun back to 2002103100. TE Note that the raw probability forecasts are still uncalibrated. We have simply used a better method of specifying forecast probability from a set of discrete ensemble forecasts. EG 1/13/2003 Modification to purging scripts to keep past case files from being deleted if they are less than 72 hours old. 1/7/2003 Found and fixed a few bad SST perturbation values. pert_sst.F was written to read f8.4 values from the formatted data files (e.g., /home/disk/emm5rt/ensemble/preprocess/SST/SST_pert01_d1.dat). Exponential notation values were in the dat files for values smaller than 0.0001, so for example 0.000023 was written as 2.3e-0.5. This was then read in as a perturbation value of 2.3. These values are now reset to 0.0. The impact on the ACMEcore+ runs to date is negligable. There were only 1 or 2 of these bad values per member, and some were in the bogus land area where they make no difference. Where they were actually over water, the surounding perturbations likely washed out their effect. TE 1/6/2003 Modified ensm_preprocess.pl to fix bug associated with an initial inability to locate the server of the ensembles output directory. This bug caused the UKMO forecasts to fail from time to time even though all of the input grids were available. 12/20/2002 Slight modification to run_ensemble.pl and ensm_preprocess.pl to add more diagnostics. Change to crontab entries to allow STDOUT and STDERR to go to same file and to cycle the log files every quarter of the year. Switched centroid wait time to 10 Z from 11 Z. 12/17/2002 Turning back on 1-hourly output for domain 2 with Rick's mods to reset extreme values only every three hours. 2002121800 will be first cycle with these mods. 12/13/2002 11 pm Commented out changes to ensm_postprocess.iofilter.pl. They did not seem to work (graphics were missing). 9 pm Modified ensm_postprocess.iofilter.pl to use iofilter.pl to call graphics creation and GEMPAK file creation scripts. The postprocessing machine is getting swamped and it is possible this will fix that. Moved CMCG and CENT ensemble members back to tahoma. 4 pm Moved CMCG and CENT ensemble members off of tahoma and back to ensemble machines in attempt to stabilize MM5 real-time post-processing. 12/6/2002 Turned back on ensemble cron jobs after data move completed. 9:35 pm PST. 9/26/2002 Major upcoming changes: ---------------------- 1) Target date for the beginning of PHASE IV is 10/01/2002. UKMO will be re-instated. We are also adding the JMA (Japan) ICs, for a total of 8 core members. This results in the production of 8 mirrored perturbation runs. Including the centroid, we will now have a 17-member ensemble, titled ACME (Analysis- Centroid Mirroring Ensemble). 2) The perturbation factor in the mirroring process will be increased 10% to 1.1. This increase accounts for the deficiency in normalized variance that results when doubling the number of samples by using a perturbation factor of 1.0. Thus, the normalized variance of the core members will now be matched by the normalized variance of the core and mirrored members together. In idealized experiments with 1-D sine waves, this slight increase results in mirrored waves that have identical spectral amplitudes to the original waves. 3) Core members and the centroid will also be run at the 1200 UTC cycle. Thus, all products associated with ACMEcore will be generated at the 1200 UTC cycle and viewable on the web page. 4) Also at this time, we will be running 8 perturbed-physics model runs in a near-real-time mode. The ICs for these runs will be from the core members. Access to the regular plots for these runs will only be accessible in the department. However, they will be accessible via the web page through the file listing below the graphics selection table. This access is the same for the mirrored perturbation runs. 5) MM5 Ensemble Forecast Website changed to: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~emm5rt/ensemble.cgi A full description of ACME will be available soon.9/1/2002 Feed for CMC-GEM data has been sped up, resulting in earlier finishing times for that run, the centroid, and the mirrored perturbation runs. The core runs now are usually finished before 1200 UTC, sometimes by 1100 UTC. The centroid and mirrored perturbation runs start firing up an hour after the last of the 6 ICs arrive. This is now much earlier, usually 0700-0730 UTC.3/21/2002 Feed for UKMO data has been discontinued. Hoping to re-instate this model on or before 10/01/2002, the target starting date for PHASE IV. Back to 6 ICs temporarily.2/12/2002 Seven ensemble perturbation runs are added, called "mirrors". The ICs for these runs are created by reflecting each of the seven core analyses across the centroid analysis. The mirror perturbation runs begin at approximately 1030 UTC (0230 PST) and finish by about 1600 UTC (0800 PST).1/23/2002 GASP (Australia) ICs are added to the ensemble. Total number of ICs now at 7.1/14/2002 Updated Mean & Stdev plots...these plots should now be available operationally.1/9/2002 New 10-node (20 processor) Linux PC cluster is online and operational. First successful ensemble forecast runs are made on the new machine.11/7/2001 Phase III begins. Mixed-physics members still discontinued until new computer arrives. MRF permanently discontinued. TCWB and UKMO ICs added to the mix. Switch to version 3.4 of the MM5 code is made.7/9/2001 Real-time deterministic run updated to MM5 Version 3. Added 4 vertical sigma levels. Therefore, less processing time is available on the SUN ES6500. Forced to discontinue ETA_TKE and ETA_REISNER ensemble physics runs indefinitely.6/30/2001 Phase II ends.5/1/2001 Lowest sigma-level wind speed and direction options are added to the mean & spread plot selection menus.4/26/2001 Scalar verification statistics are posted for Phase II (Oct. 2000 - Mar. 2001).10/1/2000 - 3/31/2001 Phase II real-time ensemble forecasts are carried out.8/11/2000 Three physics members are added to the system now totalling eight members. The Eta model serves as IC/LBC for all three physics members. The physics changes are summarized by the table at:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~emm5rt/mem_descrip.html8/1/2000 The Phase II setup of the experiment begins. The NGM ensemble member is discontinued and replaced by the MRF.7/12/2000 Scalar verification measures posted for Phase I (January-June, 2000) plus Winter (JFM) 2000 and Spring (AMJ) 2000 breakdowns. Statistics include Mean Error (bias), Mean Absolute Error, and Root-Mean Squared Error.5/12/2000 Added ensemble verification page with seasonal and YTD stats.4/26/2000 Improved the website presentation and included the new option to view the ensemble spread plots. Spread summaries also made available.4/10/2000 Verification statistics for the ensemble over the 12 km domain made available.3/15/2000 NCEP made changes to the NGM initialization process which may affect the NGM-MM5 verification scores.1/24/2000 Basic description of ensemble system completed.1/20/2000 Ensemble mean now available starting with the 2000012000 run. MM5 Ensemble Forecast Website changed to: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~epgrimit/ensemble.cgi1/11/2000 MM5 Ensemble Forecast Website available to the public in test phase only.1/4/2000 Humble beginnings of the MM5 Ensemble Forecast Website.
Questions and comments should be directed to: Eric Grimit Last Updated: August 25, 2005
[UW Atmospheric Sciences] [UW MM5 Real-Time System] [UW Weather Information ]