History

GSL History

In 1979 the Program for Regional Observing and Forecasting Services (PROFS) was formed. The Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) was formed in 1988. In October 2005 - FSL became the Global Systems Division (GSD) of the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL). On October 1, 2005, the Forecast Systems Laboratory merged into the Global Systems Division of the Earth System Research Laboratory. On April 2, 2020 NOAA designated the four divisions of the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder as full laboratories within the NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Line Office to meet recent shifts in mission-essential priorities. The Global Systems Laboratory and three other laboratories retained their core research missions, and continue to collaborate closely with each other and other NOAA Research laboratories to improve understanding and ability to predict changes in Earth's atmosphere.

• 1979 - Program for Regional Observing and Forecasting Services (PROFS) was formed in the Environmental Research Laboratories (ERL), Boulder, CO, under the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), to build the capability to acquire, process, and display the data necessary to study weather events in a real-time operational work environment. This program was headed by Don Beran and then Alexander (Sandy) E. MacDonald.
• 1981 - PROFS received coordinated guidance from a "Troika," consisting of the directors of the National Weather Service (NWS), National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), and the OAR Environmental Research Laboratories (ERL).
• 1981 - PROFS staff number grew to about 40. A computer system was installed which permitted the real-time acquisition and storage of radar reflectivity data (from NWS radars at Limon, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming), weather satellite visible and infrared images (through a Colorado State University link), and a mesoscale network (“mesonet”) of automated surface stations measuring conventional meteorological parameters. These new radar and mesonet observations and real-time acquisition and visualization were a key part of the NWS Modernization, and PROFS gave a test environment for using this rapidly updating data by forecasters. This system was operated daily during the 1981 convective storm season to obtain a data set for a displaced-real-time forecaster evaluation exercise which took place in late 1981.
• 1982 - First real-time forecast exercise conducted. PROFS implemented three forecast stations, two in PROFS and one at the National Weather Service Forecast Office (NWSFO) in Denver. One PROFS forecast station consisted of an advanced workstation with sophisticated image and graphics display capabilities (Reynolds, 1983). The other was a “typical" NWS forecaster station with AFOS graphics, a Kavouras radar display, and satellite Unifax prints. The NWSFO forecast station was identical to the advanced workstation implemented in the PROFS Forecast Office. Data sources were identical to those in 1981. This was also a summer convective-season exercise.
• 1983 - Real-time forecast exercise conducted (again in summer). PROFS added the real-time capability to handle limited amounts of Doppler radar reflectivity and velocity data, rapid-scan satellite image data, Profiler data, and additional local network data from a lightning detection system and an array of automatic stream-level and rainfall gauges.
• 1984 - Profiler Technology Transfer Group (PTTG) was formed.
• 1984 - PROFS entered its second phase. While the first phase was largely consumed with building a capability, the second phase was primarily oriented toward use of the capability. PROFS management defined two major areas in this second phase: (1) forecasting research and development, which included a test program and joint research efforts with other ERL laboratories, and (2) technology transfer, which included working directly with operational programs such as NWS AWIPS-90 (visualization), NESDIS VAS (satellite), and NEXRAD (radar).
• April 1984 - PROFS conducted its first cool-season forecasting experiment from February through April 1984. The late winter of 1984 was unusually devoid of downslope wind events, but 11 snow events were forecast and documented in real time and recorded on disk for later review. The objectives of the exercise were to try out an updated version of the PROFS workstation, including about 20 new interactive applications programs; to introduce PROFS meteorologists to winter weather and to learn some mesoscale characteristics of wintertime phenomena; and to develop the logistics for conducting a wintertime forecasting experiment, complete with entering and scoring forecasts.
• June 1984 - PROFS installed an advanced forecast workstation, supported by a PROFS VAX-11/l50, at the FAA's Air Route Traffic Control Center in Longmont, Colorado.
• October 1984 - PROFS added a new branch, Experimental Forecast Systems, to coordinate the development and installation of the PROFS workstation that will go into the Denver Weather Service Forecast Office for the real-time 1986 exercise.
• October 1984 - PROFS underwent organizational changes with the formation of two new branches. A portion of the Science Branch of the Exploratory Development Group was detached to form the separate Analysis and Prediction Branch, dedicated to the development of a Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction System and the support of the FAA's Central Weather Processor program. The new Experimental Forecast Systems branch was formed to concentrate on the development of products and applications for the PROFS advanced forecasting workstation.
• 1985 - Real-time summer forecasting exercise was conducted. An enhanced visualization workstation with advanced capabilities developed at PROFS was made available to forecasters from the operational and research communities. Weather forecasts were recorded and verified by chase teams to be scored for accuracy and reliability, and the data collected during the exercise were stored for future use. An important occurrence during the exercise was the Cheyenne flood on 1 August 1985, which resulted in widespread damage and loss of life. With the help of the PROFS workstation and advanced data sets, exercise forecasters were able to help predict the severity of the storm, and the data collected during the storm proved extremely valuable to severe-storm prediction research.
• Sept 1985 - The PROFS Visitor Program arranged visits for approximately 100 visitors each month. Many of these visitors come from abroad, including a delegation from the People's Republic of China who stayed for one month, short-term visitors from as far away as Australia and Zimbabwe, a television crew from Japan, and the Special Assistant to the Director of Civil Aviation of Spain.
• 1985-1986 - FAA conducts its Aviation Weather Forecasting Task Force (McCarthy 2001, BAMS) including membership from NCAR, universities, private sector, and PROFS representatives (Sandy MacDonald, Stan Benjamin). Recommendations from this Task Force leads to initial use of automated aircraft reports to improve model prediction and a later agreement between NOAA/FSL and NCAR to together conduct aviation research.
• 1986 - The Denver AWIPS-90 Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation (DAR3E) project was the most important project in FY 1986. DAR3E was an early version of the visualization workstation that later became AWIPS (Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System). Personnel from each branch of PROFS participated in the planning, design, implementation, and support of the advanced interactive forecaster workstation installed at the Denver Weather Service Forecast Office (WSFO) to provide NWS with an evaluation of many functional capabilities planned for the AWIPS-90 system.
• 1986 - PROFS continued to provide support for the Center Weather Service Unit at the FAA's Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) by installing a new forecaster workstation and upgrading the data communications system between ARTCC and PROFS.
• 1986 - For NEXRAD, PROFS coded and tested more algorithms to be used in the new national Doppler weather radar system.
• 1986 - PROFS staff actively participated in the exchange of information in the environmental science community with the publication of more than 40 articles, reports, and papers concerning PROFS activities and research during FY 1986
• 1987 - The Denver AWIPS-90 Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation (DAR3E) project developed in FY 1986 became operational at the Denver NWS Forecast Office.
• 1987 - PROFS began the Weather Forecast Program featuring daily weather discussions for all interested parties.
• 1987 - The ST.O.R.M. (Stormscale Operational and Research Meteorology) Education and Research System was designed to support the education and research communities, and workstations were installed temporarily at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, OK, at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and at NCAR in Boulder, CO.
• 1987 - Automated aircraft meteorological reports (wind and temperature) were added to the PROFS Exploratory Development Facility (EDF) data set. These reports became available as an outcome of the FAA-sponsored Aviation Weather Forecasting Task Force (1985-1986, McCarthy et al., 2001, BAMS). The PROFS EDF became a collection point for rapidly updated observational data (usually from new observing systems), necessary for the new experimental forecasting activities in PROFS. The most important observational data included satellite, radar, aircraft, profiler, and surface data (including mesonet data).
• 1987 - Development of a polar-orbiting satellite data-ingest capability began.
• 1987 - PROFS assisted NWS and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) in defining functions and specifications for information streams for AWIPS-90 and the NOAAPORT data communications program.
• 1987 - Ron McPherson from NCEP (then, NMC) visited PROFS for a 5-month sabbatical period, leading to subsequent development of the Rapid Update Cycle NWP system and its initial implementation at NCEP in 1994.
• 1988 - In cooperation with the National Ocean Service, PROFS developed the Interactive Marine Analysis and Forecast System (IMAFS). The IMAFS workstation was demonstrated to a large number of marine scientists and was very well received.
• 1988 - In support of the National Weather Service (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System for the 1990s (AWIPS-90) program, PROFS continued to supply data to and operate the Denver AWIPS-90 Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation (DAR3E-I) workstation at the Denver NWS Forecast Office. New Doppler radar and hydrologic products were introduced to the DAR3E-1 workstation that improved severe weather forecasting. The AWIPS/NOAAPORT Interface Control Document describing the interfaces necessary for exchanging meteorological products was completed and submitted to the NWS.
• 1988 - The Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) became functional and was used to generate a number of application products on the meso-beta scale for the forecast area of a NWS forecast office (about 150 km x 150 km). Rigorous validation of the LAPS analyses was performed using independent observations.
• 1988 - On a larger scale (nation-wide), the Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction System (MAPS) employing real-time conventional (mainly 12-hourly raob data) but more importantly, asynoptic data (new, more frequent data - profiler, commercial aircraft) and isentropic coordinates was placed into an experimental real-time operation. The uses of both three-hour cycle times (more frequent than the previous 12-h cycle) and isentropic surfaces represented significant firsts in mesoscale analysis. MAPS was heavily dependent on automated commercial aircraft data, and later became the first version of Rapid Update Cycle at NOAA/NCEP in the early 1990s.
• 1988 - PROFS continued its extensive support of researchers within and outside of ERL by distributing real-time and retrospective data and products. For example, PROFS deployed a workstation to support the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Terminal Doppler Weather Radar experiment. The daily weather briefings using the PROFS workstation continued during the year with the enthusiastic participation of researchers from several ERL laboratories, NCAR. and the NWS.
• 1988 - The unique development work at PROFS continued to draw numerous visitors from other government agencies, educational institutions, private industry, the media, and the general public. On the average, 60 individuals. many of them from foreign countries, visited PROFS each month and received briefings, consultations, and other information.
• 1988 - The results of PROFS' work were reported in four (4) refereed publications, and 19 papers were presented by PROFS staff at various conferences.
• October 1989 - The NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) was formed out of PROFS.
• FORECAST SYSTEMS LABORATORY (1989 – 2005)
• 1989 - The Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) was established October 1, 1989 with the mission to transfer advances in science and technology to the nation's operational weather prediction services. It became one of the eleven labs located across the US that made up NOAA's Environmental Research Laboratories (ERL). ERL was headquartered in Boulder, CO.
• 1990 - There was a major effort within the laboratory to reorganize away from the previous (before 1989) Program for Regional Observing and Forecasting Systems (PROFS) program structure into a truly integrated research laboratory with science and operating plans. The new organizational structure was approved by Joseph O. Fletcher, Director of the OAR Environmental Research Laboratories, and was implemented. FSL consisted of six divisions: Facility Division; Demonstration Division; Modernization Division; Systems Development Division; Aviation Division; and the Science Division. FSL was located in the leased University of Colorado’s Research Laboratory 3 (RL-3) building on Marine Street in Boulder, CO.
• 1990 - Mesoscale and Local Scale Analysis - The analysis and prediction program was addressed in two domains. The Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction System (MAPS) was for a 5000 km by 5000 km area centered around the 48 conterminous states, while the Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) was for domains of 500 km by 500 km. In the MAPS effort, an isentropic coordinate model is used for four-dimensional assimilation and short-range forecasts. During FY 1990, the basic MAPS system for hourly surface analyses was installed on an experimental basis at the National Meteorological Center (NMC) for use by the National Weather Service (NWS). Within FSL, the experimental 3-d/upper-air analysis was run on a three-hour cycle, and was being extended to a one-hour cycle. This 3-d cycle later became the initial operational Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) at NMC in 1994. The Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) was used for high-resolution atmospheric diagnosis, and testing models for very short-range prediction.
• 1990 - DARE System - During FY 1990, the DARE visualization system, which was originally developed and built by PROFS, continued to operate at the NWS Weather Service’s Forecast Office (WSFO) in Denver. This system was used by NWS to prepare for its modernization in general, and the Automated Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) in particular. The system integrated all types of weather data to visualize them overlaid on the same geographic areas. It provided rapid and easy access by forecasters. Within FSL, a major emphasis was placed on using the DARE system to perform short-range forecasting. Major improvements to the system included a general ability to use gridded model data for high resolution isentropic analysis.
• 1990 - Norman System - In FY 1990, an advanced system, similar to DARE, was developed which would subsequently be operated by the NWS in its Norman, Oklahoma Weather Forecast Office. The system was designed to receive its real time national data from NWS headquarters near Washington, D.C., and its local radar data from the NEXRAD system. Thus, it tested the data delivery systems which were to be used in the modernized NWS as well as the new operational concepts related to the NWS field restructuring.
• 1990 - Profiler Demonstration Network - The NOAA Profiler Program Office began installation of a 30-station network of 405 MHz wind profilers in the central United States. These radar systems provided accurate hourly winds from the surface up to 18 km vertical, and were shown to provide excellent lower-tropospheric temperature soundings when equipped with radio acoustic sounding system (RASS) units. The profiler data was routinely transmitted to NWS and the research community.
• 1990 - Forecasting Exercises - FSL initiated and participated in a number of weather forecasting exercises such as the Winter Icing and Storm Project (WISP). Also included were the "shootouts,” which compared artificial intelligence methods of short range forecasting. FSL conducted daily weather forecast discussions and other activities leading toward an Experimental Forecast Facility.
• 1990 - Aviation Gridded Forecast System - During FY 1990, a plan was formulated to develop high resolution predictions of atmospheric primary variables, such as momentum, mass, and moisture, and to convert these to aviation hazard fields, such as ceiling, visibility, icing, and turbulence. FSL worked with the FAA, NCAR, and NWS to produce these new diagnostics to improve aviation forecasts.
• 1990 - UNIX Workstation - FSL developed a meteorological workstation for use on personal computers (PCs). The system used the UNIX operating system, and provided many of the functions found in the DARE system, such as an advanced user interface and high resolution displays.
• 1990 - FSL continued to generate interest from other federal agencies, educational institutions, private industry, the media, and the general public. FSL's Visitor and Information Service Office arranged visits for over 1200 visitors during FY 1990. Foreign visitors included scientists from the USSR, China, South Africa, many European nations, and Canada.
• 1991 - The pre-AWIPS system was installed in Norman, Oklahoma in January 1991. The staff at Norman was trained on the workstations and began using them in March to perform their forecast duties. An interface to the WSR-88D Doppler radar was also developed and tested.
• 1991 - In January 1991, the spatial resolution of the experimental MAPS run at FSL (later, to become the operational RUC at NMC in 1994) was increased from 80 km in the horizontal and 18 levels in the vertical, to 60 km in the horizontal and 25 levels in the vertical. MAPS began to provide six-hour forecasts.
• 1991 - The Denver AWIPS Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation (DARE-II) Project continued to support all forecasting and warning functions at the Denver WSFO. The existing system was upgraded to provide a third workstation with the capability for animation and fast image loading.
• 1991 - Beginning in July 1991, MAPS began to incorporate automated commercial aircraft data from the United Parcel Service flights. This markedly increased the number of nighttime reports from the Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated [ARINC] Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS).
• 1991 - An expert system to provide forecast guidance for the prediction of severe downslope winds was completed and installed at the Denver Weather Service Forecast Office (WSFO). The system was used operationally at Denver during the 1990-1991 windstorm season.
• 1991 - The Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) was used during a convection forecasting experiment called Zcast-91 to quantify the improvement in forecasts of radar reflectivity. Output from several models was used to develop three-dimensional visualizations on Stardent computers.
• 1991 - The AI (Artificial Intelligence) Project conducted Shootout-91, a comparison of systems that forecast severe weather. The experiment built on a similar exercise held in 1989 and was a joint venture of NOAA's Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL), National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service (NESDIS), and National Weather Service (NWS).
• 1991 - Twenty (20) production Wind Profilers were installed and began operating during the fiscal year. This brought the total in the network up to 24 out of the planned 30. Real-time hourly data from 22 of the profilers was sent to the NWS for distribution to forecasters and was found to be extremely useful. The data was also sent to Unidata for distribution to universities and researchers.
• 1991 - FSL initiated and participated in a number of weather forecasting exercises. These included the "shootouts", which compared artificial intelligence methods of short range forecasting, Zcast-91, and the Storm-scale Operational and Research Meteorology - Fronts Experiments Systems Test (STORM-FEST), a multiagency field project.
• 1991 - The Joint Forecast System Project between the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) of Taiwan and FSL/NOAA was implemented in June 1991. A formal “Agreement for Cooperation in Meteorology and Forecast Systems Technology” was established between the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA) now the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the United States. This agreement provided a framework through which FSL/NOAA provided: 1) technical expertise; 2) training and scientific exchange activities to CWB in areas of mutual meteorological interest, and 3) forecast systems development.
• 1991 - The Central Computer Facility was upgraded with a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) dual-processor VAX 6000 Model 520 (2 x 13 million instructions per second [MIPS]) vector computer. A new DEC SA800 12-gigabyte (GB) storage array was installed on the Central Facility VAXcluster. Four 5-GB 8-mm cassette tape drives were installed on the VAXcluster.
• 1991 - Thin-wire Ethernet cabling was installed on the second, third, and fifth floors of RL-3, while a twisted-wire Ethernet was successfully implemented in the basement of RL-3 on Marine Street in Boulder. These extensions of the network ensured that all FSL offices had network access.
• 1991 - A 1.54 Megabit per second (Mbps) Tl link was installed to the Internet backbone at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Mesa Laboratory. This enhanced FSL's access to the NSFnet/Internet wide-area-network. The new link was in addition to FSL's Ethernet connection to the University of Colorado for alternate Internet access. Also, the network interconnect between RL-3 and Park Place (an adjacent building with FSL staff) was upgraded to a Tl link.
• 1991 - During the summer of 1991, a major transition was planned to change the FSL Central Computer Facility from the proprietary DEC VAX/VMS environment to Open Systems based on Portable Operating System Interface for Computer Environments (POSIX) and other existing and evolving standards.
• 1991 - FSL's Visitor and Information Services Office arranged visits for over 1200 visitors during FY1991. Foreign visitors included scientists from China, Australia, Taiwan, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Nigeria, Switzerland, New Zealand, Hungary, and Italy. The Visitor and Information Services Office also arranged or helped with many conferences and meetings. Numerous presentations were made to area schools and community groups in Colorado, impacting 700- 800 students and adults.
• 1992 - In March 1992, LAPS and the participation of FRG (Forecast Research Group) meteorologists were important elements during the Stormscale Operational and Research Meteorology-Fronts Experiment Systems Test (STORM-FEST), conducted from 1 February through 15 March 1992. STORM-FEST gathered data to investigate and better understand the growth and patterns of fronts and precipitation of winter weather. The full suite of LAPS' products was generated for the STORM-FEST domain, demonstrating the ability of LAPS to run in areas outside Colorado.
• 1992 - The Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) regional weather model began running, in an experimental mode, a continuous 3-h cycle at NWS/National Meteorological Center (NMC) in June 1992. FSL and NMC began evaluating the grids from the RUC.
• 1992 - A study of the effect of Wind Profiler data on short-range forecasts was completed. Running parallel cycles of MAPS with and without profiler data showed that the profiler data had a relatively small but consistently positive statistical effect on forecasts of winds and heights. The effect was more pronounced when active weather systems passed through the Wind Profiler Demonstration Network (WPDN).
• 1992 - Data from Shootout-91 were analyzed. Shootout-91 was an AI (artificial intelligence) exercise which compared systems that forecast severe weather. Three artificial intelligence systems, a system based on a numerical data assimilation model, and teams of human forecasters made daily forecasts of severe and significant weather for Oklahoma and northeastern Colorado. Oklahoma forecaster teams generally did better than either Boulder forecasters (who worked individually) or the expert systems in forecasting spring weather in Oklahoma.
• 1992 - The LAPS suite of gridded analyses was improved and made available on FSL's Denver AWIPS Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation (DARE) workstation. The complete surface analysis package was available to the Denver NWSFO.
• 1992 - FSL receives funding to explore a new system that allows forecasters to define the weather forecast digitally over the contiguous U.S. A working group comprising operational forecasters provided guidance to the developers to more quickly deliver a working system to NWS field forecasters.
• 1992 - In cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), FRG implemented LAPS on a UNIX-based platform, a LAPS version referred to as Terminal LAPS (T-LAPS). T-LAPS, which demonstrated the portability of LAPS code, used a nested grid system to provide enhanced wind analyses for a typical airport control tower region of responsibility. T- LAPS was operational during the summer of 1992; this was the first time that data from the Weather Surveillance Radar (WSR88D) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) terminal Doppler weather radar were combined and used outside those systems.
• 1992 - Acquisition of IBM RISC 6000 systems allowed real-time forecasting on a routine basis. LAPS analyses at l0-km resolution were used to initialize the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CSU-RAMS) for several winter and summer cases. Results from these runs demonstrate that fine-scale features that significantly modulate intense weather events (winds and snow) can be resolved and could be used to enhance local forecasts. Three-dimensional visualization of LAPS analyses and RAMS forecasts using the Advanced Visualization System on Stardent computers demonstrated the immense potential of super-minicomputers for running numerical models and viewing their output.
• 1992 - Effort began to convert the Central Computer Facility and its users from proprietary Digital Equipment Corporation VAX/VMS computers to open systems.
• 1992 - All 30 wind profilers that were installed by contractors were accepted, along with their required communication links. Data from 29 production wind profilers and one prototype were routinely sent to the NWS Telecommunications Gateway for distribution to forecast offices, the private meteorological community through the NWS Family of Services, Unidata for distribution to university and other research users, Global Telecommunication System for distribution to international users, and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for permanent archiving. A transition plan for the WPDN from a demonstration network to a network managed by NWS was developed, at the request of the Department of Commerce (DOC), and submitted for approval.
• 1992 - The PC workstation software was ported to a new UNIX operating system.
• 1992 - An interface to the first WSR-88D Doppler radar was installed at Norman. This interface integrates local radar data into the pre-AWIPS workstations. It also provides all the control functions needed to interact with the WSR -88D Radar Product Generator. A second WSR -8 8D radar was connected to this interface during the latter part of the year, providing radar coverage over the entire area of responsibility.
• 1992 - The data acquisition for the ISPAN central feed of satellite data was completed with the addition of large-scale satellite imagery.
• 1993 - In May 1993 the NWS redirected support work from the DARE-IT to the development of the new FX-ALPHA. After this date only essential upgrades were made to the existing DARE-IT systems. All new development, including those products developed but not yet installed in DARE, were incorporated into the FX - ALPHA.
• 1993 - The first version of the general user emergency management dissemination system was designed, built and installed in the Boulder Emergency Management Center, and five months later an improved model replaced the first. The meteorological information displayed on the system was studied and assessed for its potential use. These studies were done by researchers from Colorado State University as well as City of Boulder and Boulder County users.
• 1993 - A major upgrade to the experimental MAPS, the largest since 1991, was implemented this year. This upgrade included a modified vertical coordinate (the hybrid-b system), the introduction of surface fluxes and an initialization scheme into the forecast model. This new coordinate was included in the initial RUC implemented operationally at NMC in 1994. The new vertical coordinate gave much higher resolution near the ground, but improved forecasts at all levels. The addition of realistic surface fluxes of heat and moisture (including the effects of parameterized clouds) improved both forecasts and high-frequency analyses, especially in the lower troposphere. The dynamic initialization scheme reduced noise during the first few hours of MAPS forecasts.
• 1993 - The new hybrid-b version of MAPS was transferred to the National Meteorological Center for final pre-implementation testing as the Rapid Update Cycle.
• 1993 - Analyses and forecasts from MAPS have been used in a variety of projects associated with FSL's Aviation Division, including products for the Aviation Gridded Forecast System (AGFS) and the Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), and experimental analyses and forecasts for the Aviation Forecast Verification Program. MAPS participation in the verification program has included rerunning a number of cases from the February-March 1992 Stormscale Operational and Research Meteorology Fronts Experiment Systems Test (STORM-FEST) special observing program using the hybrid-b version of MAPS.
• 1993 - The CSU-RAMS model ran once a day, producing a 12-hour forecast that began in the morning and ended about sundown. The model forecasts were presented at the daily weather briefings in the FSL Forecast Center.
• 1993 - The division expended a major effort in support of the continuing FSL transition toward Open Systems computing that began in Fiscal Year 1992. The objective was to migrate the FSL computer facility and its users from proprietary Digital Equipment Corporation VAX/VMS computers to Open Systems. The facility comprised more than 200 computers ranging from micros and minis to a supercomputer-class Massively Parallel Processor (MPP), mass-storage devices, data-ingest interfaces, local area networks, external communications links, and display devices. During the year, over 10% of the VAX processors were decommissioned, and replaced with UNIX workstations and servers. A major upgrade of the network was accomplished by implementing high-speed [100 megabit per second (Mbps)] Fiber-Distributed Data Interface (FODI) backbone.
• 1993 - The PC workstation was installed in the Longmont, Colorado, Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) to test the Aviation Gridded Forecast System concepts. A significant accomplishment was the development of a high bandwidth, real-time data interface between the PC and the NIMBUS data distribution system. This interface provides routine distribution of real-time meteorological data from FSL to the workstation over a 1.5 MHz (Tl) communications link. The PC workstation configuration, consisting of a Sun 670 server and 80486 PC running UNIX SVR4, was installed at the COMET training facility in Boulder.
• 1993 - The initial phases of FSL's X-window (FX) workstation development were completed.
• 1993 - A functional prototype of the AGFS workstation was implemented at the Center Weather Service Unit (CWSU) at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center. A large suite of weather products and observations were integrated on this workstation. In addition to traditional weather products, CWSU meteorologists use the experimental AGFS workstation to access observations such as Doppler radar, wind profilers, and a mesoscale-surface observing-network. National-domain analyses and forecasts generated by MAPS were also accessible as well as hourly upper-air analyses generated by LAPS.
• 1993 - The Nearest Neighbor Tool (NNT) was developed. The NNT significantly advanced the ability to develop parallel finite-difference weather models. The NNT also provides source code portability between a large subset of existing MPPs and networked workstations through the use of a portable communications and input/output layer to the target machines.
• 1993 - An era came to a close as the DARE-II system at the Denver WSFO was connected to the WSR-88D, the operational Doppler radar. For more than 10 years, data from research radars provided vital support to NWS operations at Denver, particularly severe weather warnings; the new operational Doppler radar will continue this support.
• 1994 - The National Weather Service and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research were engaged in the design, deployment, and assessment of the Wind Profiler Demonstration Network (WPDN) since 1987. The Wind Profiler Assessment Report and Recommendations/or Future Use, 1987-1994 was published in August 1994. The meteorological assessment demonstrated that wind profiler data led to significant positive benefits to a broad spectrum of NWS forecasts and warnings.
• 1994 - A major milestone occurred on September 27, 1994 when RUC went into official operations at NMC. FSL and NMC collaborated in the testing, evaluation, and implementation of RUC. An independent evaluation by NMC showed that RUC was achieving its goal of producing accurate analyses and short-range forecasts at a high frequency.
• 1994 - Testing has started for the next version of RUC. This version, RUC- II, includes higher vertical, horizontal, and temporal resolution and improved physics parameterizations. It had 40-km resolution with 40 levels running on a I-hour update cycle with cloud microphysics, atmospheric radiation, and a multilevel soil model in the forecast module.
• 1994 - A great deal of effort went into porting LAPS to new locations and providing support to the users. Off-site installations included Seattle, Washington; Atlanta, Georgia; and Norman, Oklahoma. The platforms included Sun, IBM, HP, and Cray. A complete version of LAPS was ported to the University of Oklahoma to support the Verification of Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX) for 1994 and 1995.
• 1994 - An assessment of the Mark-IVB satellite data system and associated software was completed. Mark-IVB was an advanced meteorological workstation developed by Lockheed Corporation to be used primarily by the U.S. Air Force. It ingested, stored, processed, and displayed various satellite data, such as GOES and TIROS. In a 6-month qualitative evaluation of the Mark-IV analyses, Mark-IV was compared with MAPS using the DARE II workstation. The results showed good agreement for temperature and height but only marginal agreement for wind.
• 1994 - The FSL 100 megabits per second (Mbps) Fiber-Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) backbone ring was completed. The resultant "ring-of-trees" network consists of six FSL division 10- Mbps Ethernet subnet trees connected to the FDDI backbone ring.
• 1994 - The Demonstration Division continued to operate and maintain the WPDN and supply upper-air and surface data to a wide range of users. All 32 profiler sites operated and routinely sent data to the Profiler Control Center (PCC) in Boulder. The hourly-averaged profiles were sent to the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG) for distribution to the regional NWS AFOS circuits and the National Meteorological Center. The datasets continued to be available to 135 universities, the private sector subscribers, the government research community, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) community. All six-minute and hourly-averaged profiler data were archived by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Users received hourly wind data at a rate of 88.3% averaged over all sites, communications at a rate of 98.3%, and the hub computer availability at a rate of 96.9%.
• 1994 - A version of MAPS became operational at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) as the initial version of the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC). The RUC has a unique role within the National Weather Service (NWS) in that it is the only operational system that provides updated national-scale numerical analyses and forecasts at less than a 12-hour frequency.
• 1995 - A version of the Rapid Update Cycle with 40-km horizontal grid spacing and 40 levels in the vertical, was developed and preliminary testing began in real time. Concurrent with development of the 40-km MAPS/RUC, initial tests were made of a 1-hour assimilation cycle for MAPS, with a new analysis being produced every hour based on the latest data and the previous 1-hour forecast.
• 1995 - The LAPS analysis and prediction was integrated into the WFO-Advanced workstation. Each of LAPS twice-daily runs on the WFO-Advanced workstation produced a prediction out to 18 hours.
• 1995 - Researchers completed the first year of an Environmental Science Data Integration and Management (ESDIM) project to prepare the full period of Hourly Precipitation Data (HPD) observations (about 50 years) for inclusion on a Hydrology CD-ROM set.
• 1995 - The Facility Division (FD) managed the computers, communications networks, and associated peripherals that FSL staff used to accomplish their research and systems-development mission. The FSL Central Facility was comprised of 51 computers ranging from micros and minis to a supercomputer-class Intel Paragon Massively Parallel Processor (MPP), mass-storage devices, data-ingest interfaces, local-area networks, external communications links, and display devices. An additional 556 Internet Protocol (IP)-capable hosts served the other five FSL divisions and the International Program.
• 1995 - FD network management staff continued to upgrade and expand the FSL network and its connection to the outside world via the Internet. In addition to the 262 UNIX and 18 VAX/VMS computers, there were 120 PCs and 27 Macintoshes on the FSL network. The FSL main 100 megabits per second (Mbps) Fiber-Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) ring was upgraded with the installation of an Optical Data System (ODS).
• 1995 - Demonstration Division staff continued to operate and maintain the NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) (formerly the Wind Profiler Demonstration Network - WPDN) and supply upper-air and surface data to a wide range of users. All 32 profiler sites are operating and routinely sending data to the Profiler Control Center (PCC) in Boulder. The data from each site were transmitted to the Profiler Hub computer system, within the PCC, for processing and quality control. The hourly-averaged profiles were then sent to the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG) for distribution to the regional NWS AFOS circuits and NCEP. The datasets continued to be available to about 130 universities, the private sector subscribers, the government research community, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) community. All six-minute and hourly-averaged profiler data were archived by the National Climatic Data Center.
• 1995 - Development of the Aviation Weather Network (AWN) was completed and underwent real-time testing for the Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS). The AWN consisted of data ingest and product generation subsystems that produced real-time imagery, graphics, and textual weather information which are critical to aviation.
• 1995 - The WFO-Advanced two-dimensional display system (D2D) was developed into a system nearly capable of supporting NWS field operations during the course of this fiscal year. The D2D supported a real-time exercise from August 1-24, with forecasters participating from FSL, Denver, and Norman.
• 1995 - For the first time, an end-to-end AWIPS Forecast Preparation System (AFPS) was demonstrated at the AFPS Forecaster Working Group (AFWG) meeting in September 1995. Starting with first-guess forecast grids based on the Model Output Statistics (provided by the Techniques Development Laboratory), Rapid Update Cycle, and Nested Grid Model, AFWG members prepared zone forecasts using the TDL Interactive Computer Worded Forecast (ICWF) text generators.
• 1995 - Two major AWIPS Enhancement Research (AER) reports were written this year, focusing on refinements to the AWIPS design that would reduce program risks by better utilizing advanced technology. An AWIPS Technology Analysis was prepared, providing a thorough examination of how available technology can be most effectively utilized within the AWIPS program. And a document offering suggestions regarding a viable AWIPS User Model was created for the purpose of assisting the AWIPS Graphical User Interface (GUI) design team.
• 1995 - The International Project was elevated to Program status, making it the equivalent of a division within FSL.
• 1995 - By the end of the fiscal year, 2100 schools were registered for the GLOBE Program. Version 1 of the GLOBE software for both the World Wide Web (WWW) site and PC workstations was finalized and released. The CD-ROM GLOBE software was made available to schools that had high-end PC workstations.
• 1996 - The LAPS team worked with the Peachtree City Weather Forecast Office staff and the IBM Corporation to install the first true operational application of LAPS for ingesting standard and supplemental surface observations, plus the data from wind profilers installed specifically for the Olympics held in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996.
• 1997 - A new version of the RUC forecast model, RUC-2, was transferred to NCEP during FY 1997 and was scheduled for operational implementation at NCEP in early FY 1998. The RUC-2 was the 40-km version of MAPS, developed and extensively tested at FSL, which produced new three-dimensional analyses and short-range forecasts every hour (compared to every 3 hours in RUC-1). This new version was a significant advance over RUC-1, not just in assimilation frequency, but also in resolution, types of data assimilated, and model physics. These changes allowed the RUC-2 to more accurately represent significant weather systems across the United States in all seasons.
• 1997 - The LAPS package was incorporated as an integral element of the WFO- Advanced workstation. LAPS was successfully ported to the AWIPS contractor for AWIPS Build 4.1. It ran as an application within AWIPS and allowed a variety of gridded fields to be combined with satellite imagery and radar on state and local scale displays. The LAPS in AWIPS served the LDAD system operating outside the AWIPS network.
• 1997 - The AWIPS Build 3.0 (prerelease) workstation software was demonstrated at the AMS 13th Interactive Information and Processing Systems Conference held in Long Beach, California. The software was executed on a K200 data server and two J200 dual display workstations. An T1 communications link to a Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN) acquisition system at FSL provided the real-time synoptic data for the workstation. In addition to the T1 link, the system received real-time radar data from the Oxnard, California, radar site over a dedicated 9.6 Kb/s line.
• 1997 - Version 1 of the Real Time Verification System (RTVS) was completed and implemented in the NWS Aviation Weather Center (AWC) Experimental Forecast Facility. This version included the capability to assess the quality of AIRMETs (for icing, turbulence, and IFR conditions) and AIV (aviation impact variables) algorithms (for icing and turbulence conditions). Voice pilot reports and surface observations were used as verifying observations.
• 1997 - The DARE system at Denver was removed in May 1997 marking the end of nearly 8 years of service. The system lasted twice as long as its planned lifetime, and even more remarkable is that very little maintenance was required during the last 4 years.
• 1998 - GLOBE includes 6500 participating schools from 80 countries, 10,000 GLOBE-trained teachers, and two million observations in its data archive. As a leader in the GLOBE program since its inception, FSL worked with GLOBE management in Washington, D.C. in sponsoring science education workshops, developing curricula, and training teachers (K-12). FSL developed the first GLOBE workstation and data processing center, and continued using advanced features to enhance the data center and the GLOBE Website.
• 1998 - The next version of the RUC, RUC-2, was implemented operationally at NCEP on April 6, 1998. RUC-2 had higher resolution than RUC-1 (from 60km to 40km), more vertical levels (from 25 to 40), higher frequency (from 3h to 1h), and more sophisticated treatment of physical processes (e.g., clouds, boundary layer, land surface, etc.). The RUC-2 is described in this article by Benjamin et al. 2004.
• 1998 - At the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), FSL implemented analysis and prediction capabilities to support operations in 10 global theaters. The work involved making LAPS relocatable and resizable "on the fly," robust with respect to varying data densities, and connectible to the MM5 Version 11 parallel model.
• 1998 - FSL upgraded the FSL network backbone to the high-speed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology. The new switched (not shared) ATM network backbone provided an order-of-magnitude improvement from the previous shared 100 megabits per second (Mbps) Fiber-Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) ring.
• 1998 - The WFO-Advanced Local Data Acquisition and Dissemination (LDAD) became an integral part of AWIPS. LDAD provided NWS forecasters nationwide access to detailed local mesoscale observations that enhance federal observing systems. By integrating local and federal observations together, forecasters could closely examine local weather conditions to produce more detailed regional weather forecasts.
• 1998 - AWIPS Build 4.0 proceeded through a series of test steps leading to its deployment in the middle of the fiscal year. The changes included a revised interprocess communications, revised user interface, and the Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS).
• 1999 - Five NOAA research laboratories including FSL and the Denver Weather Forecast Office moved into the David Skaggs Research Center (DSRC) at the 325 Broadway, Boulder, U.S. Department of Commerce campus. The five NOAA labs vacated their previous building, RL3 at 3100 Marine St, Boulder, CO.
• 1999 - With the move to the DSRC, the FSL network advanced from primarily shared 10-Mbps Ethernet desktop connectivity to switched (nonshared) 10- and 100-Mbps connectivity. This network was augmented by two new 10-Gigabit per second (Gbps) ATM switches.
• 1999 - The Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) was installed. This system, which was built by HPTi Corporation and named Jet, was installed in December, and announced in a press conference on April 26, 2000. The initial machine, HPTi ACL/256, consisted of a 277-node Alpha-Linux cluster using 667-MHz Compaq processors, a Myricom Myrinet interconnection network, a 100 Terabyte Mass Storage System, and a 600-Gigabyte Storage Area Network. An upgrade to the compute portion of the system later more than doubled the compute capacity. Upgrades over the next two years increased the system's compute power more than eight times. The Mass Storage was upgraded to 200 Terabytes and the Storage Area Network to 2 Terabytes. When fully configured it consisted of over 1,500 processors with a peak speed of over 5 trillion arithmetic calculations per second. It brought FSL into the ranks of NOAA supercomputing, and allowed rapid advances in a number of areas, including the development of very high-resolution mesoscale models. Running at resolutions as small as a kilometer, the availability of the HPTi supercomputer was crucial to FSL's role in the development and testing of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. A second very important use was testing future observing systems. Finally, FSL participated with NASA, NOAA NWS/NCEP, and NOAA NESDIS, in an effort to develop and improve techniques for better use of satellite data in numerical weather prediction.
• 1999 - The RUC/MAPS group started a project with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for using wind forecasts from RUC to produce experimental forecasts of the potential for wind power generation. The high vertical resolution of the RUC near the surface and high accuracy of surface winds made the RUC a good source of model guidance for this problem.
• 1999 - In conjunction with the Forecast Research Division, the Facility Division implemented RUC-2 model backup capability for NCEP operations. The staff supported the real-time FSL Central Facility for 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 1999 - In support of the FSL user community, the Facility Division operators answered routine facility, data, and systems-related questions, and performed the following specific tasks: (1) oversaw the daily laboratory-wide computer system backups amounting to 400 GB of data, (2) serviced approximately 60 user requests for data compilations, file restoration, and account management, (3) created a Web database of more than 60 pages documenting the procedures for maintaining the Central Facility real-time datasets, (4) performed an FSL-wide inventory of over 400 hardware components for the database project, and (5) assisted in facilitating approximately 30 video teleconferences.
• 1999 - FSL accommodated more than 732 visitors, not including visits arranged directly with FSL staff. Usually the "educators and students" category constituted the largest number of visitors, but the "general public" category led with 261 visitors with "government visitors" at 249. There were 113 educators and their students, 49 foreign visitors, 60 visitors from the private sector, and 49 foreign visitors, including representatives from China, Australia, Taiwan, Canada, United Kingdom, Hungary, and Korea.
• 1999 - The first operational version of FX-Net, an experimental remote meteorological workstation that could run AWIPS over the internet, was completed. An initial version of this system was installed for evaluation by the Meteorology Department at Plymouth State College, New Hampshire. Professors there were able to test the system for use in a new teaching laboratory being built in support of the New England Climate Initiative. Additional development of FX-Net yielded a system that is successfully being used in the undergraduate curriculum at Plymouth State College .
• 1999 - A Memorandum of Agreement was signed by NWS headquarters, the NWS Alaska region, and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research/FSL for the implementation, support, maintenance, and operation of the Alaska 449-MHz Profiler Network which became operational in October 1999. The three Alaska profiler sites were at Talkeetna, Glennallen, and Central. The sites were equipped with GPS precipitable water vapor systems, surface meteorological sensors, as well as FTS-2000 data communications
• 2000 - A PC/Linux version of the AWIPS workstation was developed and demonstrated.
• 2000 - An experimental version of the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model running at FSL was changed to an updated version, including changing from 40-km resolution to 20-km resolution. This updated 20km version of the RUC was implemented operationally at NCEP in 2002.
• 2000 - Jet supercomputer was upgraded from 270 processors to 540 processors.
• 2000 - The DTF3 and DTF5 turbulence algorithms were evaluated during the Turbulence Intercomparison Experiment conducted from 16 January –– 31 March 2000.
• 2000 - Flight tests were performed in December 1999, April and May 2000 with the PII-LF (4.6-m diameter) and PII (4.9-m diameter) balloons. In the May test, the balloon descended on its hemispherical shell while achieving an appropriate descent speed of 3.5 –– 4.0 ms-1. The May flight test also validated the FSL instrument package in the air.
• 2000 - Alaska Profiler Network recorded data availability to the NWS was over 90% since June 2000, and over 98% since August 2000,
• 2000 - The initial "alpha" version of the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) was completed and tested by FSL users.
• 2000 - NWS commissioned the AWIPS system nationwide and decommissioned the AFOS (Automation of Field Operations and Services) system.
• 2000 - The first in a series of software deliveries for AWIPS Operational Build 5 was completed. This version provided unique localizations to meet the needs of the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), which dealt with a much larger area of responsibility and issued an entirely different set of products than was required at the local weather offices.
• The FSL group working on the Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) provides training to NWS operational forecasters before their transition to defining the weather forecast digitally. FSL hosts several groups of 60 forecasters each from all NWS regions.
• 2000 - The GLOBE Program has more than 10,000 participating GLOBE schools located in 97 partner countries in 2000.
• 2000 - In support of CWB's new supercomputer and related high-performance computer activities, FSL used the SMS tool to parallelize CWB's typhoon model, the Typhoon Forecast System (TFS).
• 2000 - An operational version 2.0 of FX-Net released in September 2000. Risk reduction studies and the design of a robust operational server and client version were part of this development.
• 2000 - FX-Net was selected as the official forecaster workstation to support weather forecasting at the 2002 Winter Olympics outdoor venues in Salt Lake City. In this scenario, the FX-Net server is located at the NWS Western Region headquarters in Salt Lake City. Forecasting offices at each of the five Winter Olympics outdoor venues will be equipped with FX-Net PC clients. With strong support from the NWS staff, an FX-Net server was installed at the Western Region headquarters. High-speed communication lines were installed to connect the server with the outdoor venues' forecasting offices. FX-Net was successful in its debut at several pre-Olympics trials held in November 2000.
• 2000 - During FY 2000, the Visitor Program office accommodated at least 2,323 visitors, not including visits arranged directly with FSL staff outside this office. The largest category of visitors came from academia, educators, and students, numbering 1,039. Other visitors included 603 from the general public, 543 from government entities, 76 from the private sector, and 62 from foreign countries, including Australia, Denmark, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
• 2001 - A special RUC assimilation cycle was run January-March 2001 in support of the PACJET experiment, a field experiment investigating intense low-level wind and precipitation patterns in vigorous U. S. West Coast winter storms. The RUC cycle featured a domain extending west to as far as 148 deg W, forecasts out to 36 hours every 6 hours, a 10-km nested grid with forecasts out to 24 hours, and assimilation of experimental GOES rapid-scan (GWINDEX) cloud-drift winds. The RUC forecasts showed very good accuracy, pronounced local orographic effects, and were used as part of the forecast guidance for planning flight missions in the NOAA P-3 research aircraft.
• 2001 - Major milestones were met with the completion of FX-Net version 3.0, released in May 2001, and with version 3.1beta, completed in November 2001. Version 3.0 presented a new direction for the FX-Net: instead of a specific WFO localization, FX-Net focused on a nonlocalized national display which included the 120+ WSR-88D radar sites located in the lower 48 states.
• 2001 - The Facility Division was reorganized and renamed the Information and Technology Services.
• 2001 - The FSL High-Performance Computing System (HPCS) underwent several upgrades last year, including an interim addition of a 280 compute processor platform. Additional storage was made available to the user community, with the total available storage now about 2.4 TB. A 12-TB storage system obtained from the Bureau of Census was designed for the HPCS.
• 2001 - The FSL local area network (LAN) underwent a significant upgrade. Four Marconi Communications 20-Gigabit ESX-3000 ATM/Ethernet Campus Switches were installed to improve management of the distributed ATM LAN Emulation services that underpinned the FSL network core, an extension of the dual ATM OC-12 (2 x 622 Mbps) links from the core to the edge, provision for additional ATM and Ethernet port capacity, and a four-fold increase in performance over legacy Fast Ethernet edge modules. During 2001 network port, device, and link capacities were available to support 202 FSL employees. The network utilized 518 total links, comprising 430 user links and 88 network device links.
• 2001 - The availability of hourly NPN winds to the NWS remained high through 2001, averaging about 95%.
• 2001 - Two additional NPN sites (Neodesha, Kansas, and Jayton, Texas) were equipped with RASS for temperature profiling this past year. Eleven NPN sites now had RASS capabilities, typically providing measurements up to 2.5 –– 4 km above the ground.
• 2001 - Initial field testing of the Linux version of D2D was completed at the Denver/Boulder Weather Forecast Office. By the end of 2001, the National Weather Service had installed a Linux workstation at each of its field offices.
• 2001 - The Emergency Manager Dissemination System (EMDS) was integrated into AWIPS Build 5.1.2 for operational release to Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) nationwide.
• 2001 - The initial version of MADIS was released to the public during 2001, and now supports observation distributions to government, research, and educational institutions, as well as several private companies. Organizations already receiving MADIS data feeds include NWS forecast offices, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction. All MADIS subscribers had access to a reliable and easy-to-use database containing real-time and archived datasets.
• 2001 - The Scalable Modeling System (SMS) was used to parallelize 1) an atmospheric chemistry code (NALROM) for the Aeronomy Laboratory, 2) a version of the Princeton Ocean Model for the Environmental Technology Laboratory, and 3) the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model for Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• 2001 - An end-to-end Real-Time Verification System (RTVS) was delivered to the Aviation Weather Center (AWC). Three modules were implemented at AWC, including real-time processing of the AWC icing and turbulence forecast/observation pairs using AWC decoded data, storage, and access of the data through the RDBMS and display through a newly developed Web-based graphical user interface.
• 2001 - The GLOBE Program has more than 12,000 participating GLOBE schools located in 97 partner countries today.
• 2001 – Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) is being used operationally at several NWS forecast offices to generate gridded forecasts. Some offices are using these grids to generate a subset of their text product suite.
• 2001 - During 2001, the Visitor and Information Services program office accommodated at least 1,882 visitors, not including visits arranged directly with FSL staff outside this office. Because of heightened security later in the year, the number of visitors, particularly those from schools, was down. The largest number of visitors came from academia, educators, and students, numbering 892. Other visitors included 408 from the general public, 423 from government, 67 from the private sector, and 92 from foreign countries, including Hungary, the People's Republic of China, India, Taiwan, Australia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Algeria, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Republic of Armenia, and Finland.
• 2002 - Capitalizing on major development work at FSL, the National Weather Service began installing two Linux-based workstations at each of its Weather Forecast Offices around the country in January 2002. Eventually these workstations replaced the Hewlett-Packard hardware which inaugurated the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) era. The highly robust Linux was developed in an open-source environment and ran on nonproprietary hardware.
• 2002 - A major revision to the RUC system including 20-km horizontal resolution was implemented at NCEP on April 17, 2002, culminating a four-year development and testing activity. The higher horizontal resolution of the new version took advantage of the improved computing capability at NCEP on its IBM SP computer. The new version had four key aspects: finer (20-km) horizontal and vertical (50 levels) resolution, an improved version of the RUC forecast model, assimilation of GOES-based cloud-top pressure, and use of an improved version of the RUC optimal interpolation analysis.
• 2002 – Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) developers create a new text formatter framework that creates text directly from the gridded forecast. This component will save forecasters from hand-typing the forecast after creating the grids, thus saving time in delivering a forecast to the public.
• 2002 - The maiden flight of the 60-ft diameter GAINS Prototype III (PIII) balloon occurred on June 21, 2002. This flight met several development objectives, including launching the PIII balloon, floating it at altitude for more than eight hours, transforming the balloon envelope into a deceleration device, achieving a safe descent rate, tracking the balloon from an aircraft; forecasting balloon trajectory before launch, updating balloon landing position during flight, and recovering the balloon and payload.
• 2002 - A new FX-Net/Air Quality client was successfully released in July 2002, just in time to support the real-time forecasters who participated in the NOAA New England Forecasting Pilot Program: High-Resolution Temperature and Air Quality (TAQ) field experiment during the summer of 2002.
• 2002 - From 30 July - 1 August 2002, a workshop entitled "Making Verification More Meaningful," cosponsored by FSL and NCAR and funded by the AWRP program, brought together an international group of researchers and operational meteorologists and hydrologists. The workshop focused on the development of advanced diagnostic verification approaches, operational and user issues, observational concerns, and verification of ensemble forecasts.
• 2002 - MM5/Chemistry was run in real time at FSL in support of the New England Temperature and Air Quality (TAQ) pilot experiment. MM5/Chem was a next-generation coupled weather/air quality numerical prediction system. In this system the chemical kinetic mechanism was embedded within the meteorological model structure, and thus the integration of the chemistry was performed as part of MM5.
• 2002 - FSL ran a special high-resolution version of the RUC model and distributed forecast fields to the NWS Western Region Headquarters for real-time AWIPS display at local offices in support of PACJET 2002. The special PACRUC configuration consisted of a 10-km grid covering all of the NWS Western Region, nested within the CONUS 20-km RUC domain.
• 2002 - The WRF and a number of other models were run in support of the International H2O Project experiment, a field program to study atmospheric water vapor centered over Oklahoma during early summer 2002. FSL modeling resources were also used to run ensembles of models at high resolution during the Temperature and Air Quality Pilot Program, centered over New England. This program led to a rapid technology transfer (to the National Weather Service) of the capability for real-time air quality forecasts.
• 2002 - FX-Net has become the workstation of choice of the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, and at 11 Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACC) throughout the country. Meteorologists used FX-Net in fighting Colorado wildfires during an unprecedented drought.
• 2002 - The number of Cooperative Agency Profilers (not NOAA), most of them sampling the boundary layer, has grown to over 60. The number of ground-based GPS sites estimating total column water vapor now exceeds 200, most operated by non-NOAA collaborators. More than 5,000 new surface mesonet observations have been added to the FSL hourly MADIS data collection. After performing quality control checks, FSL forwards all these data to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) for use in operational models.
• 2002 - NOAA Science On a Sphere® (SOS) received major exposure during the past year. SOS is a powerful educational tool for projecting geophysical, other planetary, solar, or lunar data onto a suspended sphere. The current sphere prototypes are 5 - 6 feet in diameter. First field tested with hundreds of students and their parents at the Broomfield Heights Middle School last summer, SOS has since been an attraction at the annual meetings of the American Meteorological Society.
• 2002 - FSL ran a special high-resolution version of the RUC model for three different special experiments over the last year. First, FSL distributed forecast fields to the NWS Western Region Headquarters for real-time AWIPS display at local offices in support of the PACJET 2002 (Pacific Landfalling Jets) experiment. Special 10-km RUC forecasts were also produced for the May - June 2002 Central Plains International H2O Project (IHOP-2002) to the NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Finally, the 10-km RUC was moved to a domain covering the northeastern United States in support of the Temperature and Air Quality (TAQ) experiment in summer 2002.
• 2002 - An assessment of the value of data from the NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) on weather forecasting was completed. A series of experiments were conducted using the RUC20 model in which various data sources were denied to assess the relative importance of the profiler data for short-range wind forecasts. Average verification statistics from a 13-day test period indicate that the profiler data have a positive impact on short-range (3 - 6 hour) forecasts over a central United States subdomain that includes most of the profiler sites as well as immediately downwind of the profiler observations.
• 2002 - GPS Surface Observing System (GSOS) packages were installed at 5 Nationwide Differential GPS sites and at 25 U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Maritime Differential GPS sites. That brought the number of "backbone" sites in the network to 110, with a goal of 200 sites nationwide by 2005.
• 2002 - The LAP Branch developed a LAPS system to improve the accuracy of middle-level and high-level parachute delivery of logistical material to Army military units (Precision Air Drop Systems, PADS).
• 2002 - An integrated local data assimilation and forecasting system was installed in support of the Air Force Range Standardization and Automation (RSA) program designed to modernize and standardize the command and control infrastructure of the two U.S. Space Launch facilities (ranges), located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida. The system produced hourly LAPS analyses and a new MM5 forecast run every 6 hours on a triple-nested domain with 10-km, 3.3-km, and 1.1 km grid spacing, respectively.
• 2002 - In collaboration with NCAR, LAPS branch scientists began designing an ensemble of mesoscale models to support a Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) road weather project. The ensemble includes multiple models (MM5, RAMS, and WRF) with lateral boundaries provided by multiple large-scale models (AVN, Eta, and RUC) that run at relatively high spatial resolution.
• 2002 - In support of the NWS upgrades to the D2D meteorological display and text components of the AWIPS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) system, AWIPS Build 5.2.1 was installed at most NWS field offices in the summer. The final development of Build 5.2.2 was completed, tested, and installed during 2002; this work concludes the mandate by Congress to complete the initial AWIPS system capabilities including interactive forecast preparation, severe weather reporting, service backup, and radar display functions that replace the WSR-88D Principal User Position (PUP) displays. The first operational build, OB1, was developed, installed, and tested at FSL as well. Similar support activities were carried out in 2002 for the RSA program and a customized AWIPS setup for the Johnson Spaceflight Center.
• 2002 - An early offshoot from MAPS, the MAPS Surface Analysis System (MSAS), was modified this year. The major MSAS accomplishment in 2002 involved the initial development of software upgrades necessary to increase grid resolution and vary domain boundaries for MSAS on the AWIPS system. These upgrades were delivered with AWIPS Build 5.2.2, and include the incorporation of a customization script that allows each NWS WFO to specify the domain and resolution of their local MSAS systems, and also to specify the analysis grids desired by their forecasters.
• 2002 - GLOBE Program had more than 12,000 participating GLOBE schools located in 101 partner countries.
• 2002 - In meeting the goals to improve forecasting capabilities at the Korea Meteorological Agency (KMA) during 2002, four major tasks were completed: Upgrade of the FAS nowcasting system, implementation of the Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS), implementation of the Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction System (MAPS) Surface Analysis System (MSAS) quality control and monitoring system, and provision for forecast training and risk reduction.
• 2002 - FSL participated in the Technology Day which showcased real-time demonstrations of FSL research projects.
• 2002 - The Visitor and Information Services program accommodated at least 1,452 visitors, not including visits arranged directly with FSL staff outside this office. The largest category, 645 visitors came from the federal government. Other visitors included 373 from academia, (educators and students), 205 from the general public, 101 from the private sector, and 128 from foreign countries, including Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Columbia, New Zealand, Japan, and Australia.
• 2002 - FSL accepted a major upgrade to its high-performance computing system, comprising 768 nodes with dual Intel Pentium processors rated at 2.2 Ghz. Also during that month, it was ranked #8 on the Top 500 List of the World’s Fastest Computers, and served more than two dozen external users representing most of the line offices within NOAA.
• 2002 - The latest LAPS software code, run on Linux PCs, was delivered to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB) in December 2002. This software includes an improved cloud and precipitation analysis package as well as the MM5 model with the Hot Start code.
• 2003 - The Federal Highway Administration supported a collaborative effort between FSL and NCAR to field test a model-based system for snow plow operators that helps them decide when to plow and what chemicals to spread on the road surface. This Maintenance and Decision Support System was successfully tested in Iowa in February and March 2003.
• 2003 - In May, three-dimensional variational analysis (replacing a simpler previous data assimilation method) became operational at NCEP in the 20-km version of the Rapid Update Cycle.
• 2003 - During 2003, the Office of Administration and Research accommodated at least 1,612 visitors. The largest category, 662 visitors, came from academia (educators and students). Other visitors included 462 from the federal government, 204 from the private sector, 178 from the general public, and 105 from foreign countries, including China, Australia, Africa, Korea, and Taiwan.
• 2004 - Under development at FSL since 2001, Science On a Sphere® (SOS) was shown to thousands of viewers, children and adults, at its home location at NOAA’s David Skaggs Research Center in Boulder. Since its 2002 public viewing at the NOAA Science Center, it has been exhibited at numerous scientific and educational conferences around the United States. NOAA was invited to exhibit Science On a Sphere® at the Sea Island G-8 Summit June 4–10, 2004.
• 2004 - Both WRF and RUC with 20-km and 13-km horizontal resolution provided 48-hour forecast grids for NOAA’s New England High-Resolution Temperature Program (NEHRTP) during summer 2004.
• 2004 - The final phase of a three-year project to convert the FSL network from Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) to Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) was completed. A one-time funding opportunity allowed FSL to take advantage of matching funds from the NOAA Boulder Network Operations Center (NOC) to obtain an array of six GigE network switches.
• 2004 - The required number of systems administrators is also determined by the number of network devices managed and the number of systems administrators per division. The ratio of devices to systems administrators is 125:1, which represents the number of networked systems that a single systems administrator can effectively administer. The main issue in managing these devices is IT security.
• 2004 - In 2004, the Office of Administration and Research accommodated at least 4,020 visitors This significant increase from the previous year related to several special events: the Department of Commerce 50th Anniversary celebration; the formal arrangement between NOAA and the Boulder Valley School District to give 8th graders the opportunity to visit the NOAA Boulder campus for educational presentations, demonstrations, and hands-on learning experiences; the Annual Workshop for Local Weather Observers; and special requests to see NOAA's new educational and outreach tool, Science On a Sphere®. The largest category, 2,706 visitors, came from academia (educators and students). Other visitors included 448 from government, 239 from the private sector, 577 from the general public, and 50 from foreign countries, including China, Australia, Africa, Korea, and Taiwan.
• 2004 - Evaluation of the WRF-Chem model was performed using a 2-month testbed dataset obtained during the 2004 New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS-2004). During this time period, an intensive meteorological and air quality observation and modeling program took place in New England. WRF-Chem was used to produce real-time forecasts at FSL.
• 2004 - The availability of hourly NPN winds to the NWS continued to increase, increasing slightly during 2004 to an average of 96.4%. The Alaska 449-MHz Profiler Network operated continuously and delivered data to the NWS for the past five years.
• 2004 - The installation of GPS Surface Observing System (GSOS) meteorological packages at three Nationwide Differential GPS sites and four U.S. Coast Guard sites during 2004 brought the number of “backbone” sites in the network to 117.
• 2004 - FSL’s Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) made great progress this year in a number of different areas. Its surface station reporting has reached almost 15,000 stations, providing a national mesonet that is very valuable for weather diagnosis and prediction.
• 2004 - During 2004, AWIPS Operational Builds (OBs) 3 and 4 were deployed, and the development for OB5 was completed. Development versions of AWIPS Operational Builds (OBs) 3, 4, and 5 were installed on FSL test systems. AWIPS OB3 was deployed to most NWS field offices in spring 2004. AWIPS OB4 was installed at most NWS field offices in 2004.
• 2004 - FSL developed the Advanced Linux Prototype System (ALPS) software to assist in the transition of field systems from Hewlett-Packard workstations and servers to Linux PCs.
• 2004 - FSL staff remotely updated (on a weekly basis) Taiwan's LAPS software code on the CWB computer with the latest MM5 Hot Start model and multiple background model options. FSL completed the transition of the 15-km Nonhydrostatic Forecast System (NFS), the Typhoon Forecast System (TFS), and the Global Forecast System (GFS) into our shadow system.
• 2004 - FX-Net for Fire Weather at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the latest version of the FX-Net Client, was installed at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Federal Test Center in Lakewood, Colorado.
• 2004 - Two versions of the Volcanic Ash Coordination Tool (VACT) software were delivered, users were trained, and feedback was gathered. Version 2.0 of the VACT software was developed and installed on all client and server systems. Radar datasets were reduced to include just the Alaska and Seattle radars. Version 2.1, installed in October 2004, included training, user feedback, and enhancements.
• 2005 - During 2004, the contract for the High-Performance Computing System (HPCS) was extended for two years. Work in this area involved decommissioning the Alpha-processor-based portion of the HPCS in September 2004 and implementing a major upgrade. The upgraded HPCS, based on the Intel (64-bit Xeon) system comprising 608 3.2 GHz CPUs, was accepted in December 2004 and entered into production January 2005.
• 2005 - The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is a new distributed facility consisting of nodes in Boulder, Colorado, at FSL and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), in Monterey, California. The DTC was established so the numerical weather prediction (NWP) research and operational communities can interact to accelerate testing and evaluation of new models and NWP techniques having promise for operational implementation at some point in the future. Idealized, retrospective, and real-time forecast methods are used for this purpose. The DTC Winter Forecast Experiment (DWFE) ran from 15 January to 31 March 2005, and was the first real-time NWP experiment ever conducted by the DTC. The model ran over a large domain (the 48 states) at high resolution (5 km).
• 2005 - In April, NOAA/FSL installed a permanent Science On a Sphere® (SOS) system at the National Maritime Center (Nauticus) in Norfolk, Virginia. Nauticus is a maritime-themed science center featuring theaters, aquaria, and a variety of hands-on exhibits.
• 2005 - The Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) was installed and used operationally at virtually every NWS office in the country. Some NWS National Center offices were using GFE as part of their overall methodology.
• 2005 - The Graphical Hazards Generator was developed within the GFE framework that allows NWS forecasters to create long-fused watches, warnings, and advisories using a graphical interface. GFE formatters are used to generate the text products containing the hazard specifics preserving valuable forecaster time during busy weather events.
• 2005 - A new major revision of the Rapid Update Cycle was implemented into operations at NCEP in June. The 13-km RUC replaced the previous 20-km RUC, including increased horizontal resolution but also major improvements to its data assimilation and numerical prediction model components. New observation types were added to the hourly assimilation in the RUC cycle – GPS precipitable water, mesonet, and METAR cloud observations – the first time any of these observation types have been used in any NCEP operational model. The 13-km RUC implementation was the most significant change in the RUC prediction model for its combined analysis/model effects on moisture/cloud forecasts since the implementation of RUC-2 at NMC/NCEP in 1998.
• 2005 - On October 1, 2005, the NOAA-Boulder laboratories were consolidated into the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and FSL became the Global Systems Division.