Identification

Title

Evaluation of cold-season precipitation forecasts generated by the hourly updating High-Resolution Rapid Refresh Model

Abstract

The hourly updating High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model is evaluated with regard to its ability to predict the areal extent of cold-season precipitation and accurately depict the timing and location of regions of snow, rain, and mixed-phase precipitation on the ground. Validation of the HRRR forecasts is performed using observations collected by the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) stations across the eastern two-thirds of the United States during the 2010-11 cold season. The results show that the HRRR is able to reliably forecast precipitation extent during the cold season. In particular, the location and areal extent of both snow and rain are very well predicted. Depiction of rain-to-snow transitions and freezing rain is reasonably good; however, the associated evaluation scores are significantly lower than for either snow or rain. The analyses suggest the skill in accurately depicting precipitation extent and phase (i.e., rain, snow, and mixed phase) depends on the size and organization of a weather system. Typically, larger synoptically forced weather systems are better predicted than smaller weather systems, including the associated rain-to-snow transition or freezing-rain areas. Offsets in space or time (i.e., causing misses and false alarms) have a larger effect on the model performance for smaller weather systems.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d78c9x57

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-08-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright 2013 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact