Welcome

Welcome to the RTMA/URMA VLab community!

The purpose of this community is to facilitate feedback and discussion on the RTMA/URMA system. 

Meeting notes are available under the Google Drive Folder linked above.

To learn more about our next upgrade, see the asset publication below.

Use the System Overview to learn more about the system in general.

Use the forum to ask questions about the system and join the discussion with other users and the development team. 

Note that there are two forums: one for precipitation issues and one for all other variables.

You can post to the precip issues forum by sending an email to qpe.rtma.urma.feedback.vlab@noaa.gov.  For all other issues, you can post by sending an email to rtma.feedback.vlab@noaa.gov.  Please note that you must have a user account to post to the forum.  If you do not have an account, please contact matthew.t.morris@noaa.gov.

We recently added the ability for NWS Regional or WFO personnel to request that stations be removed from the analysis.  To access this, click on the "Station Reject Lists and Requests" tab.

There has been recent interest in knowing exact station locations, especially those of METAR sites.  Our METAR information table is under the "METAR Location Info" tab.

Users may also be interested in the National Blend of Models VLab community.

We appreciate any feedback on how this page or community could be improved.  You can submit such feedback via the above email handle or forum.

 

What's New

December 2017 Implementation Summary

Document

Overview of upgrade scheduled for December 2017. Note that this was originally scheduled for October 2017, but has been pushed back due to technical issues.

Forums

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Pixel differences in viewer URMA vs GFE URMA

MS
Michael T Stavish, modified 6 Years ago.

Pixel differences in viewer URMA vs GFE URMA

Youngling Posts: 1 Join Date: 9/20/12 Recent Posts

Looking at the URMA in GFE, we see minor differences versus what the same grid in the viewer shows. This May 9th MaxT example near Coos Bay on the south Oregon Coast shows what I mean. It looks like the problem is from the background but also I'm wondering how the smartInit contributes and what's actually used to BC the models on WCOSS.

 

We see some important differences:

 

1. The values at the airport are different (86 or 92 in the viewer, and 83 or 86 in GFE) Zoom in on the viewer to see the airport which is where the ob is. 

2. The location and shape of the cooler bays are different on the viewer versus gfe. See the URMA background and the "L" shaped cool area inland from Cape Arago. It doesn't exist like that in the GFE version.

3. The warm values just off the coast over the ocean are seemingly shifted too far west in the viewer version (several 90+ degree pixels over the ocean) while these are mostly inland in gfe. The coast really needs to be better resolved here.

DS
Dana Strom, modified 6 Years ago.

RE: Pixel differences in viewer URMA vs GFE URMA

Youngling Posts: 2 Join Date: 12/8/14 Recent Posts
Good morning Michael,

I can speak to the apparent viewer pixel shift. You are correct that the viewer's version of URMA is shifted slightly west (about 1 pixel). This is an unfortunate side-effect of the image package used to produce the images. We have corrected for this the best we are able.

The good news is the technology we will be using for future viewers will not have this error.

Dana

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 8:00 PM VLab Notifications <VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov> wrote:

Looking at the URMA in GFE, we see minor differences versus what the same grid in the viewer shows. This May 9th MaxT example near Coos Bay on the south Oregon Coast shows what I mean. It looks like the problem is from the background but also I'm wondering how the smartInit contributes and what's actually used to BC the models on WCOSS.

 

We see some important differences:

 

1. The values at the airport are different (86 or 92 in the viewer, and 83 or 86 in GFE) Zoom in on the viewer to see the airport which is where the ob is. 

2. The location and shape of the cooler bays are different on the viewer versus gfe. See the URMA background and the "L" shaped cool area inland from Cape Arago. It doesn't exist like that in the GFE version.

3. The warm values just off the coast over the ocean are seemingly shifted too far west in the viewer version (several 90+ degree pixels over the ocean) while these are mostly inland in gfe. The coast really needs to be better resolved here.


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Michael T Stavish RTMA/URMA Discussion Group Virtual Lab Forum https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/715073/discussions-forums-/-/message_boards/view_message/6600702 VLab.Notifications@noaa.gov


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Dana Strom
Verification and Visualization Task Lead
Meteorological Development Lab
NOAA/National Weather Service

301-427-9451

Bookmarks

Bookmarks
  • 2011 RTMA Paper (Weather and Forecasting)

    The most recent peer-reviewed paper on the RTMA. Published in Weather and Forecasting in 2011.
    7 Visits
  • Public RTMA/URMA Viewer

    Another viewer of the current RTMA/URMA, with an archive going back 24 hours. This version is open to the public, but does not contain information about the (many) restricted obs used.
    54 Visits
  • RAP downscaling conference preprint (23rd IIPS)

    This link is to a presentation from the (then) RUC group on how the downscaling process works. Although we now use the RAP, HRRR, and NAM, the logic of the downscaling code is mostly unchanged from this point.
    2 Visits