UCAR Caribbean Project

- Monitoring and Forecast of Hurricane Activity in Caribbean Ocean -

Special Real-time Case study

Ground-based GPS PWV, COSMIC refractivity, and conventional meteorological observation data were assimilated for tropical storm forecast

Storm Watch
Initialization: 2008-09-05_00Z
4 day forecast
Pressure, Wind, and Cloud	PWV
Rainfall Forecast
09-07_00Z - 09-08_00Z	09-08_00Z - 09-09_00Z

Review of Gustav Real-time Forecast
Track	Notes
	Forecast model: WRF V2.2 Initial and Lateral Boundary Conditions (IC and LBC): NCEP GFS Initilization: 00 UTC Forecast domain size: 361x261x38 Data assimilation (DA): WRF-VAR (3DVAR) DA time window: Cold 3DVAR at initialization time Forecast hours: 4 days Background error statistics: NCEP NMC method with 14 days control forecast Observation: COSMIC refractivity, Ground-based GPS PWV, Conventional Best track: "Forecast Advisories" from NHC, NOAA Possible improvement: Cycling 3DVAR, Bugus DA in mature stage of hurricane

Forecast with GPS PWV from UCAR Caribbean Network

O minus B at the 1st DA Time Detail (6 hour DA time window)	24 hr Forecast of PWV

	6 hr (Analysis at 6 hr cycling)	12 hr (6 hr free forecast)	18 hr (12 hr free forecast)	24 hr (18 hr free forecast)
Ps (hPa)
PWV (mm)
Wind (m/s) + Ts (deg. C)
Cloud Animation Animation cloud+wind

UCAR Caribbean PWV (left)/ NWS NHC (right)

GPS PWV assimilated into WRF system

GOES Images : Water Vapor (left) / IR (right)