ROMAN:Real-Time Observation Monitor and Analysis Network

John Horel, Mike Splitt, Judy Pechmann, Brian Olsen

NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional PredictionUniversity of Utah

Ed DelgadoEastern Great Basin Coordination

Center

San Diego Tribune. 28 Oct. 2003

Outline

Data quality: limitations of observations Overview of ROMAN

Goals and Applications ROMAN displays Surface data assimilation: ADAS Summary

Limitations of Observations- All That Is Labeled Data Is NOT Gold (Lockhart 2003)

References: Challenges of Measurements.

T. Lockhart (2003). Handbook of Weather, Climate and Water. Wiley & Sons. 695-710.

Review of the RAWS Network. Zachariassen et al. (2003). USDA Tech. Report RMRS-GTR-119.

GNI

Are All Observations Equally Bad? All measurements have

errors (random and systematic)

Errors arise from many factors: Siting (obstacles, surface

characteristics) Exposure to environmental

conditions (e.g., temperature sensor heating/cooling by radiation, conduction or reflection)

Sampling strategies Maintenance standards Metadata errors (incorrect

location, elevation) SNZ

Are All Observations Equally Good? Why was the sensor installed?

Observing needs and sampling strategies vary (air quality, fire weather, road weather)

Station siting results from pragmatic tradeoffs: power, communication, obstacles, access

Use common sense Wind sensor in the base of a mountain pass

will likely blow from only two directions Errors depend upon conditions (e.g.,

temperature spikes common with calm winds) Use available metadata

Topography Land use, soil, and vegetation type Photos

Monitor quality control information Basic consistency checks Comparison to other stations

UT9

Documentation ROMAN:

Horel et al. (2004) Submitted to International Journal of Wildland Fire. Jan. 2004 Text: http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/homepages/jhorel/ROMAN_text.pdf Figures: http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/homepages/jhorel/ROMAN_fig.pdf

Horel et al. (2004) IIPS Conference

MesoWest: Horel et al. (2002) Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. February 2002

ADAS: Myrick and Horel (2004). Submitted to Wea. Forecasting.

http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/cirp/WAF_Myrick.pdf Lazarus et al. (2003) Wea. Forecasting. 971-1000.

On-line help: http://www.met.utah.edu/droman/help

Goal Provide real-time weather data around the nation to

meteorologists and land managers Display data in fast-loading formats tailored to the

wildland fire community and accessible to: Top-level managers using high speed networks Fire-behavior analysts and IMETs in the field over slow dial-

up connections

San Diego Tribune. 28 Oct. 2003

2003 Fire Locations (Red); ROMAN stations (Grey)

Fire locations provided by Remote Sensing Applications Center from MODIS imagery

ROMAN Development Software developed at University

of Utah to assist entire fire weather community to obtain access to current surface weather information

Support for development of ROMAN from BLM and NWS

Tools designed for fire weather applications can be used for many other purposes

Tested during 2002 and 2003 summer fire seasons

Operational for 2004 summer fire season

Geographic Area Coordination Centers

Applications of ROMAN Fire behavior analysts, fire management officers, GACC

meteorologists: Monitor weather conditions for strategic and tactical decision

making Determine impacts of weather on fire behavior and fire fighting

resources NWS meteorologists at WFOs

Monitor conditions within County Warning Areas, issue spot fire and general forecasts, verifying forecasts

NWS Incident Meteorologists Monitor weather conditions in vicinity of major wildland fires

Current ROMAN Web Portal: http://www.met.utah.edu/roman

States

States

Top-Level Organization

GACCsCWAs

FWZs

MODIS regions

ROMAN Structured by

GACC Predictive Service Areas NWS CWA Forecast Zones NWS Fire Weather Zones Counties within States

Intuitive, easily navigable interface Clickable maps Station Weather Weather Summary Trend Monitor Weather Monitor 5 Day Temp/RH Summary Precip Summary/Monitor Weather Near Fires Search by zip code, geographic

location Triangles: RAWS

Major data providers: NWS/FAA; SNOTEL; RAWS

What Weather Information is Available? Search by: maps (state, CWAs, GACCs, etc.)

Surface Weather Plots

Surface Data Plot

What Weather Information is Available?Search by: zip code, geographic location,

latitude/longitude

What Has Been Happening Recently?5-Day Max/Min Temperature, RH, Wind Speed

What Are the Current Conditions?Weather Summary

What Has Changed Since Yesterday?Trend Monitor

What Extreme Conditions Are Underway?Weather Monitor

How Much Precipitation Has Fallen?Monitor Summary

WeatherNear Fires

Current Weather Near Fires

Archived Fires

Weather Near Fires: 31 October 2003

MODIS Base Maps

October 29October 31

Current Configuration at CIRP

DatabasePreprocessing Web ServerDataStreams

Users

Proposed Configuration: 2004 Fire Season

Database@WR

Preprocessing@ WR

Web Server@ UU

DataStreams

UsersDatabase@Boise

Preprocessing@ Boise

Web Server@ BoiseRAWS

Other WR/WFOApps

ADAS: ARPS Data Assimilation System

ADAS is run in near-real time to create analyses of temperature, relative humidity, and wind over the western U. S. (Lazarus et al. 2002 WAF)

Analyses on NWS grid at 2.5, 5, and 10 km spacing The 20km Rapid Update Cycle (RUC; Benjamin et al.

2002) is used for the background field Background and terrain fields help to build spatial &

temporal consistency in the surface fields ADAS helps provide additional quality control of

MesoWest/ROMAN observations as well as applications to nowcasting and forecast verification

Current State of the Art While surface data may have negligible or detrimental impacts to

operational NWP, assimilation of surface data is critical for generating and verifying human-edited gridded forecasts

Current ADAS analyses are a compromise solution Suffer from many fundamental problems due to nature of

successive corrections/optimum interpolation approach Flow does not adjust dynamically to terrain

Appropriate and practical constraints beyond mass balance are not clear for use in variational techniques

See Kalnay(2003) for further comparison of assimilation methods

Arctic Outbreak: 21-25 November 2003

NDFD 48 h forecast ADAS Analysis

Summary ROMAN under development for use by weather

professionals and the public ROMAN will be operated at the Boise WFO/ NIFC

facility with 24/7 support this summer Existing web resources can be used for many applications

with access to both real-time and archival information http://www.met.utah.edu/droman will continue as a

testbed and ROMAN backup Operational ROMAN will be located at

http://roman.boi.noaa.gov Feedback: mesowest@met.utah.edu