HMT participates in the 2012 HPC Winter Weather Experiment
Ellen Sukovich, of HMT at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory,
visited the National Center for Environmental Prediction's (NCEP)
Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) in Camp Springs, MD from
January 29, 2012 to February 3, 2012 to participate in the 2012 Winter
Weather Experiment (WWE). Hosted by HMT-HPC scientists (Faye Barthold,
Mike Bodner, and Tom Workoff) and the HPC Science and Operations Officer
(SOO; Dave Novak), the WWE is a forecasting exercise that brings together
HPC forecasters, research meteorologists, and other operational forecasters
to participate in both real-time forecasting and subjective evaluation
activities to help support improvements to HPC's winter weather forecasts.
The WWE exercise provides an opportunity for critical feedback between the
research and operational communities and is a demonstration of
research-to-operations-research (R2O2R) within HMT.
For 2012, the experiment particularly focused on the probabilistic
forecasting of winter weather by exploring methods to better quantify and
communicate the uncertainty of winter weather forecasts through the
evaluation of multiple experimental ensemble systems. Through a
combination of experimental forecasting and model evaluation activities,
WWE participants attempted to determine (a) if forecasters could add value
to probabilistic winter weather forecasts, (b) how new post-processed
products (e.g., clusters) could be used in the forecast process, and (c)
what benefits storm-scale ensembles could provide for winter weather
forecasting. In addition, participants were given the opportunity to
explore how to better communicate societal impacts to non-metrological
decision makers through short presentation and feedback sessions.