Help me understand the models

[tom hanlon]

Stormtrack,

I was in the process of practicing some data analysis tools. I am a MySQL instructor. So I was like.. lets play with some GRIB2 data from the models.

So I point my browser at..
http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/
And I see..
NAM, GFS, GFS ensemble, NAEFS, SREF, and many others.

So.. I know the forecasters look at all the models and higher concurrency leads to stronger support for the forecast.

But.. if a forecaster for a local NWS office had to pick a primary model, what would it be.

GFS, or NAM ?

If you could describe the differences if there are any major differences.

I looked around the NCAR website to get info on the WRF, pretty cool, you can set up a "domain" a section of the earth and run the model locally, also took a look into some of what is accounted for. Amazing, I mean we all know it is amazing.. but it is fun to look just the same.

It seems like the current machine is a few hundred cores, IBM bluevista.

Thanks in advance.

A pointer to a website might be helpful, I already found the NCAR tutorial on running the WRF for the Boston Domain for some winter storm. I assume there are some other good websites out there.



--
Tom

 

[mikegeukes]

Do not know, if these links will help you or not

Numerical Weather Prediction (Modeling)
http://www.meted.ucar.edu/topics_nwp.php

All you have to do is register for the Meted site (free)
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/loginForm.php

Other Links:
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/GFS/
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/NAM/

Mike

 

[tom hanlon]

Mike,

Those tutorials are very helpful.

I am converting some grib2 files to text as I type.

--
Tom