Grid configuration: The coarse domain has 93 x 78 points horizontally with a 45 km
grid spacing. The nested domain has 76 x 61 points horizontally, with a 15 km grid spacing.
Both domains have 25 layers in the vertical, with the model top at 75 mb. Both domains
are run for 36 hours. The nested domain land surface characteristics (terrain, land/water,
sea surface temperature, land use, soil moisture, snow cover) are all interpolated directly
to the nested grid scale; as a result the nested grid has features consistent with that scale and
is not just an interpolation from the coarse grid information.
The coarse grid timestep is 135 secs, and the fine grid timestep
is 45 secs. Initialization: The model is initialized at 0000 UTC. The 00 hour forecast from the 0000 UTC Early Eta run (Eta 211 grid, grid has 80 km data resolution, actual model run has 32 km resolution) is used as the first-guess. If the 00Z Eta run is unavailable, the previous 12Z ETA run is used as the first-guess, and if that is not available, then the previous 12Z AVN run is used. The 0000 UTC rawinsonde and surface METAR observations are used to enhance the first-guess using NCAR's MM5 RAWINS package with the multi-quadratic analysis scheme. The Eta (or AVN) forecast fields at 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, and 48 hrs are used for the lateral boundary conditions. The fine grid surface characteristic fields (terrain, land/water, vegetation, SST) are interpolated to the fine grid directly from the original data. The fine grid initial fields are interpolated directly to the fine grid (not from the coarse grid).
Soil moisture and snow cover: The soil moisture availability is updated during the model run, using the modifications provided by Jim Bresch at NCAR/MMM. The soil moisture availability (SMA) is initialized for each run using the Eta 12 hr fcst SMA from the previous Eta run (the previous 12Z run). The snow cover (just yes/no, not snow depth) is updated during the model run using the IFSNOW option in the model. The snow cover is initialized from the most recently available NESDIS IMS snow cover analysis.
Links to current weather:
Purdue's Northeast U. S. Surface Data Plot
Purdue's MSLP Analysis
Latest ETA Initial Analysis (4 panel chart from Purdue)
WSI's National Reflectivity Image
NOAA/NESDIS GOES 8 East Conus IR Image
NOAA/NESDIS GOES 8 East Conus Visible Image
NOAA/NESDIS GOES 8 East Conus PW Image
NOAA/FSL Satellite Image Loops
NCEP precip analyses and loops
Other related links:
MESO, Inc.
MESO Surface plots
NCAR/RAP Weather site
NCAR/RAP Radar
NCAR/RAP Satellite
CDC Weather site
Unisys Weather site
NCEP Precip page
GOES Satellite page
Intellicast Radar Summary
Intellicast Satellite Image
NCAR's MM5 home page
Albany, NY NWSFO
Binghamton, NY NWSFO
Buffalo, NY NWSFO
Burlington, VT NWSFO
For more information on MESO's MM5 modeling capabilities contact info@meso.com
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