MASS

MESO scientists developed the Mesoscale Atmospheric Simulation System (MASS) in the early 1980's and have continued to improve it ever since. The president of MESO, John W. Zack, was one of the original developers. MASS has been used successfully as a research tool for a wide range of problems, ranging from academic studies of mesoscale dynamics to applications as diverse as rocket exhaust and agricultural forecasting. MASS is currently used in the two major parts of MESO's extensive wind energy efforts: (1) simulating the climatology of the wind at various places around the world to assist in the siting of wind plants; and (2) making real-time forecasts of the wind for existing wind plant owners. MASS is also used by the U.S. Air Force Combat Climatology Center to generate climatologies of a much larger set of variables.

OMEGA

The Operational Multiscale Environment model with Grid Adaptivity (OMEGA) was developed at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) over the last decade. OMEGA is an advanced numerical weather prediction system based upon a unique unstructured triangular mesh that facilitates the placement of additional spatial resolution anywhere required. MESO has been a partner in the development of OMEGA, and we can use it for applications such as aerosol transport or hurricane forecasting.

WRF

The Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) is a new model currently under intense development by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and many other groups. The WRF is an operational model built from the ground up using advanced numerical and programming methods and the best physical parameterization schemes. The result should be a state-of-the-art mesoscale model which runs efficiently on one or hundreds of processors. MESO is currently experimenting with the latest versions of WRF; we intend to use it for appropriate research and commercial applications as it reaches maturity over coming months and years.