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Assessing the Skill of Updated Precipitation-Type Diagnostics for the Rapid Refresh with mPING
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2017
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Source: Weather and Forecasting, 32(2), 725-732
[PDF-1.31 MB]
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Journal Title:Weather and Forecasting
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Description:Previous work has shown that the Rapid Refresh (RAP) model severely underrepresents ice pellets in its grid, with a skill near zero and a very low bias. An ice pellet diagnostic upgrade was devised at the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) to resolve this issue. Parallel runs of the experimental ESRL-RAP with the fix and the operational NCEP-RAP without the fix provide an opportunity to assess whether this upgrade has improved the overall performance and the performance of the individual precipitation types of the ESRL-RAP. Verification was conducted using the mobile Phenomena Identification Near the Ground (mPING) project. The overall Gerrity skill score (GSS) for the ESRL-RAP was improved relative to the NCEP-RAP at a 3-h lead time but degraded with increasing lead time; the difference is significant at p < 0.05. Whether this difference is practically significant for users is unknown. Some improvement was found in the bias and skill scores of ice pellets and snow in the ESRL-RAP, although the model continues to underrepresent ice pellets, while rain and freezing rain were generally the same or slightly worse with the fix. The ESRL-RAP was also found to depict a more realistic spatial distribution of precipitation types in transition zones involving ice pellets and freezing rain.
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Source:Weather and Forecasting, 32(2), 725-732
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