EAS 308, Meeting 13

Assemble meteorological data for collected for R4N glider contest

You have collected meteorological data for the contest period (7-14 Oct 06) with which to validate our RAMS-for-TTC forecasts. Now it’s time to assemble the data and note any missing data:

Surface data: (Zahid) BWI, hourly (1043 through 2243 GMT (0643 through 1843 EST):

All data were collected. No missing data

Satellite images: (Yosef) BWI, hourly, large-size, Visible 1345 thru 2245 GMTand Infrared (B/W) 1343 through 2243 GMT:

All data were collected for 12, 13, 14 October 2006 except missing Visible and Infrared images from 7 through 11 October. Missing data will be retrieved from NCAR (NationalCenter for Atmospheric Research) using our McIDAS Man-computer Interactive Data Acquisition Sustem) in J902 by our associate Kwan Kong ()

Upper air data: (Julian) 77.3W, Sounding, NAM (12km), 12, 15, 18, 21 GMT, download both .gif image and text file.

All data were collected.. No missing data

Radar data:(Daycia), LWX, hourly, 12 through 22GMT:

All data were collected. No missing data

RAMS real-time predictions:(Julian) rams.atmos.colostate.edu/realtime/00z/index.php3, Grid 1, Surface, Accumulated Total Precipitation (12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22h):

All data were collected for 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 October 2006 except missing 7 and 14 October 2006 data. Prof. will contact CSU colleague responsible for RAMS-real-time runs (Steve Saleeby, ) to see if we can get the missing data.

Prof’s report:

RAMS-for-TTC predictions were made for 7 trough 114 October 2006 due to the generosity of my CSU colleagues allowing us to run on their pc-cluster.

The R4N had five contest days 8, 9, 10, 13 and 14 October 2006. Typically the meet is held in the spring and they are luck to get in 3 contest days! We (they) lucked out. So, considerable flight data have been accumulated for our study. You can read about the contest at

We continue our development of the forecast regions by completing step two in Appendix A of the assigned reading (OSTIV) paper.

Assemble the forecast regions

We finished Meeting 12 as follows. “The g8NN designators and the coordinates (latitude, longitude) of RAMS Grid02 are “hardcoded” into TTC. This information will be used by Dr. Liechti to make a custom TTC release for our study. Then, when you update "regtherm.cfg" with these tools, TopTask Competition will use the updated file if you select File/New from the menu bar. You will easily recognize overlaps and gaps when defining forecast regions in SeeYou”.

Over the weekend, I completed the M-ASA.cup file containing all the regions, my interpretation of the regions and e-mailed them to Dr. Liechti. On Monday 16 October, he sent me the updated TTC. The regions you are producing as Assignment 10 can now be visualized using the following steps:

  1. Follow all the steps in Mtg. 12 (Assemble regions) down to the last paragraph.
  2. Then, with your newly created regtherm.cfg file in the same directory as TTC, you visualize the regions by launching TTC, clicking on File/New and clicking on the M-ASA regions in the region window.

Let me demonstrate the procedure in a test directory on my computer.

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