vorticity.de does not want to compete with current Diagnosis Systems such as
wxcharts
windy
ventusky
visualweather oder
NinJo
Neither does vorticity.de want to reduce modern synoptics to the theory of the ideal cyclone
or bring the visualization back to the old-style visualization of
16-FAX-Charts
nor does vorticity.de want to go back to maybe 'good old times' - because we have
'even better times' today!
The intention of vorticity.de is to bridge the gap between traditional synoptics and
the current state of synoptic and modern forecast techniques, so to say state-of-the art
instead of art-of-the-state.
This is mainly achieved by combining various meteorological charts to arrays of charts to make
the synoptic interpretation easier and to allow new ways of interpretation and verification.
Especially the
visual comparison of classical and GRIB products
and the comparison of analysis charts and forecast charts of different lead times for identical valid times
(
HINDCAST)
are normally difficult to be accomplished because the required charts are nostly not available in normal operations,
neither the MSLP forecast charts issued four days ago with lead timne H+108 of DWD and UK MET nor the
GFS GRIB forecast charts worldwide which have been issued one week ago with lead times up to H+180.
Progress in meteorological research during the last decades, especially in the fields of Numerical Weather
Prediction
(
NWV),
Ensemble Forecast
ENS
(
Ensemble Technology)
Statistical Weather Forecasting
MOS
(
Model Output Statistics)
and data representation of
GRIB conmpared to classical forecast
has made products available that enable even forecasters
with minor synoptic knowledge to keep up in the normal forecasting business. Nevertheless,
understanding these products is important for their appropriate and critical interpretation
and to identify their limits.
This synoptic understanding enables the forecaster to anticipate alternative developments and
to be prepared accordingly. It is, however, important to resist the temptation of trying to
improve automatic forecast products and actually making them worse - which is a well known process
called disimp?rovement.
The subjective verification of forecast charts by visual comparison with the analysis chart for the
same validtime allows the judgement, whether or not the forecast chart gave the right clue to predict
the actual situation correctly. To allow this 'visual verification', old forecast charts with a leadtime
of 36/60/84/108 hours to the actual analysis valid time are necessary - I doubt whether these 'VOID'
products are available to the forecaster.
This type of verification is not meant to replace important standard verification parameters for
NWP-products such as Anomaly-Correlation-Coefficient (ACC), but to complement it. Objective
verification is mandatory for Inter-NWP-model-comparison and has been established as SOP,
Standard Operational Procedure.
The main goal is to allow the immediate verification here and today - 365 times per year and
not for selected casestudies only with a bias depending on the intention behind:
The selection of very poor forecasts to show low performance of the models or of excellent forecasts
to show their brilliant performance.
Meanwhile there are authentic experiences with young meteorologists (BS, MS, even Ph.D.)
who know the difference between a High and a Low, but know the geostrophic wind by name only.
These colleagues may enter a more scientific career (most likely not), but they will never
get the thorough understanding of synoptics. This results in a loss of genuine synoptic Know-How
which is a pity because ikt is required to improve Postprocessing procedures in future.
Just interpreting NWP models might cover daily operational requirements, but does not result
in improvement of direct model output fore better forecasts.
Understanding current Hi-Tec Forecast products is important to 'stay in the loop',
to check the plausibility of the forecast, to identify its limits and to anticipate
possible alternative developments and be prepared for them.
This may not result in disimprovement of automatic products (well known phenomenon!)
The subjective visual verification of forecast and analysis charts with identical
valid time
(
HINDCAST)
allows an immediate information whether or not the forecast chart gave the
correct information to the forecaster to make a correct forecast - twice daily,
00 and 12 UTC, 365 day per year - not just for case studies with a bias according
to the intention of the person who make the case study: either poor forecasts
to show how poor the model and postprocessing products perform - or cases of excellent
forecasts to show the opposite.
It is not intended to replace important standard verification parameters for an
objective verification of NWP-products like Anomaly-correlation-coefficient 500 hPa,
just to offer continuous near-realtime verification options if required.
Procedures for an objective verification of forecast products have become
Standard Operational procedures at all major National Meteorological Centers
Comments, critics, suggestions or requests more than welcome!: bernd.richter(et)web.de