The USFS Rocky Mountain Center (RMC) conducts continuous real-time verification of forecasted surface fields of air temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, and horizontal wind speed. Current verification products include:
- MFF/MM5 Point Forecast Verification for the Continental US: compares individual forecasts at specific locations produced by the MFF and MM5 model against actual hourly meteorological observations from METAR stations across the Continental USA. Regional forecast averages are also compared against observed regional means for Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast, and the entire Conus domain.
- MM5 Spatial Verification (Forecast Bias Maps) for the West: displays the 30-day mean difference between MM5-predicted fields of surface parameters and corresponding 'observed' fields derived from LAPS analysis.
LAPS uses real-time observations from hundreds of met. stations to calculate spatially continuous grids of weather data over the Western USA. RMC uses these grids to verify surface forecast fields with the awareness that LAPS interpolation algorithms have their own biases, and do not perfectly match reality. Forecast bias maps are generated for every model run in 6-hour increments.
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MM5 Point Forecast Verification for the West:
compares statistically adjusted (MOCA) and unadjusted (raw) MM5 predictions of surface parameters averaged a past 30-day period at individual locations against 30-day means of hourly
meteorological observations from hundreds of METAR stations in the Western USA.
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Point Forecast Verification Comparison (RMC vs. NWS). This product compares accuracies of official point forecasts produced by RMC and the National Weather Service (NWS) in the Southwestern USA. NWS employs live human intelligence to generate its spot forecast while RMC entirely relies on a computer-controlled automated process to deliver its point forecast.
All verification products are updated daily.
Webmaster: Ned Nikolov (nnikolov@fs.fed.us)