Multi-Scale Predictability of High-Impact Weather in the Battlespace Environment

Objectives of our study include: i) examination of the predictability of regional-scale weather phenomenon that have a high impact on military missions, ii) exploration of new methods to initialize ensembles for global and mesoscale atmospheric models, and iii) diagnosis of mohourdel error and uncertainty, and inclusion in ensemble design. For the global ensembles, the ensemble transform initial perturbation method is superior to the current operational method, and work is underway to determine the exact configuration that will be transitioned to operations. On the mesoscale, we have developed and tested a new mesoscale ensemble forecast system using the atmospheric portion of the coupled ocean/atmosphere mesoscale prediction system (COAMPS)^reg that is targeted for operational implementation as part of the joint ensemble forecast system. We also have performed ultra high-resolution simulations of airflow over complex terrain to explore aviation turbulence hazards.