Challenges in Urban Meteorology: A Forum for Users and Providers (September 21-23, 2004)

1. Challenges in Urban Meteorology: A Forum for Users and Providers (September 21-23, 2004) Panel 4: Research and Development for Urban Weather and Climate Applications Lloyd Treinish IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights, NY lloydt@us.ibm.com http://www.research.ibm.com/weather http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt

2. Panel 4: Research and Development for Urban Weather and Climate Applications • We are a small weather modelling group at IBM Research focusing on understanding of mesoscale weather as it relates to weather-sensitive operations and decision support, and developing solutions for such applications • We have developed an operational, prototype NWP-based system, which has provided regular forecasts for the NYC-metropolitan area at 1 km resolution as a testbed for over 3 years (“Deep Thunder”) • To evaluate both meteorological and “business” value beyond physical realism • To evaluate the level of practicality and usability at reasonable cost • To develop an operational end-to-end infrastructure and automation with focus on high-performance computing, visualization and system integration • To prototype “business” applications with actual end users • Additional testbeds at 2 km resolution for Chicago and Kansas City established earlier this year • Although work is on-going and capabilities have limitations, it is sufficiently evolved for some practical urban applications and to assess additional needs

3. Current Focus and Issues • Several specific urban (and suburban) applications with short-term (three to 18 hours) weather sensitivity • Emergency management, homeland security, energy (distribution, operations and generation), road maintenance and operations, traffic management and airport terminal operations • Results to date are sufficiently compelling to enable discussions with local government agencies and private companies for each of these applications in several urban areas in the US • Unfortunately, these interactions are ad hoc and duplicative because • No formal mechanisms exist to engage such groups or to transfer technology or services • There is no central clearing house of information for urban decision makers to become aware of such potential capabilities • Methods are needed to properly validate the utility of such forecasting systems for these applications • Traditional meteorological (statistical) verification is not appropriate for many urban applications • True end-user metrics are often ill-defined or simply qualitative at present • What level of capability is “good enough” for an effective deployment ? • Need for a “heads-up” for severe weather event, even with opportunity for phase errors vs. standard zone forecasts, which may be too vague • More focused dissemination since standard meteorological products are a clear mismatch with end-user decision makers, whose expertise is in applications and understanding the impact of weather as opposed to meteorology

4. An Example (Among Many): NYC Metropolitan Area Heavy Rainfall Event -- 8 September 2004 • Remnants of Hurricane Frances moved into the NYC metropolitan area early in the morning of September 8 • The heaviest rainfall occurred in an area stretching from northeastern New Jersey through central Westchester County, NY with amounts in excess of 5" in some areas • There was widespread disruption of transportation systems (e.g., road closures, flooded subways, airport delays) and significant flooding in several regions • Evening NWS zone forecast (2130 EDT, 7 September) for the next day: "showers and a slight chance of thunderstorms, rain may be heavy at time in the morning" • Revised NWS zone forecast (0440 EDT, 8 September), adding: "locally heavy rain possible" • NWS issued a flash flood watch at 0748 EDT

5. Forecast Results 07 September 2004 Late Evening • Heavy rainfall predicted for the morning with similar distribution to reported rainfall, although some differences in totals • Forecast initiated with data from 2000 EDT (0Z) with results available about midnight • Significantly different forecast compared to NWS forecast (available about 8 hours before flash flood warning) • Despite some error, significant "heads-up" for event Forecasted rainfall totals through 24 hours: 4 km nest (above) and 1 km nest (below)

6. Road Forecast of Rainfall Totals (1 km Nest) A More Focused Presentation of the Forecast May Be Appropriate for Specific Applications (e.g., road maintenance and operations, traffic management) • Measured Rainfall (Inches) • JFK 2.76 • Mamaroneck 3.73 • LGA 3.83 • Central Park 3.75 • Norwalk 4.25 • White Plains 5.85 • Fair Lawn 1.50 • Bethpage 5.20 • Orange 2.30 • EWR 2.07 • Hoboken 3.87

7. Forecast Results for Other Applications • Interest in surface and upper air winds dictates entirely different presentation • “Virtual wind profilers” at two locations within 1 km nest enhanced with trajectories to show forecasted propagation

8. Needs and Future Directions • Despite promising results to date, improvements are clearly needed in several key areas • Improved model representations of boundary layer physics and cloud microphysics • Better observing (sampling) strategies coupled with data assimilation to reduce errors in initial conditions • Continued advances in overall system cost-effectiveness (performance, throughput and usability) • Further prototyping and development of systems that can be used with confidence is required • End-to-end tailoring for specific application focus (throughput, physics and dissemination) – forecast products when they are needed in the way that they are needed • While R&D continues, deploy now even with limitations, to enable earlier understanding of operational constraints and issues as well as to develop user-oriented metrics • Establish additional testbeds for specific urban weather issues or application sensitivity • Emphasize further two-way education and collaboration with potential beneficiaries

9. Needs and Future Directions • Appropriate visualization is critical to enable meteorological data to be usable for urban applications – methods are available but not widely utilized • Understanding of how weather data need to be used and why (e.g., human factors concerning how users work and interact) • Understanding of how users perceive and interpret weather visualizations • Data must be made relevant for different classes of users using their terminology, and thus, expressible in terms that can be readily understood in real-time without expert interpretation • Effective coupling to derived modelling and analysis for proactive planning is necessary but much more work needs to be done • Meteorology needs to be reasonably correct (“good enough”) first, which has been the primary focus for R&D • Direct match to relevant physical problem (e.g., pavement, dispersion) • Direct match to relevant operational problem (e.g., crew and equipment optimization [scheduling and routing] that is impacted by weather)