R2O Success story - Implementation of a snowpack treatment in the land surface model improves CPC’s drought monitoring and prediction

March 25, 2022

Through an OSTI-funded project, University of Arizona professor Xubin Zeng and team in close collaboration with NCEP scientists developed and implemented a snowpack treatment in the Leaky Bucket model at the NCEP Climate Prediction Center (CPC), that has improved the CPC’s operational drought monitoring and prediction products.  

The CPC uses the Leaky Bucket model to calculate soil moisture from temperature and precipitation. It has been operational at the CPC for two decades. Despite its crucial role in the water cycle, snowpack has been neglected in the model and in most drought indices. The Leaky Bucket model overestimated drought severity over some regions, which is significantly reduced with the new snowpack treatment. While there are several snowpack products developed inside or outside NOAA, most of them cover only continental US. The new enhancement enables the CPC to do global drought monitoring and prediction over snow-free and snow-covered regions. 

The project also demonstrates a successful Research to Operations (R2O) transition, an initiative within the NOAA to entrain cutting-edge research into operational models and forecast products. The two-year project started at a Readiness Level (RL) of 5 and moved up to RL 9, where the results were successfully transitioned to operational use at the CPC by allowing drought forecasters to estimate impact of spring snowmelt.  

For more details of the project please read their publication here. For more information on CPC’s land surface monitoring and prediction products please click here.  

Figure:  Snowpack treatment in the CPC Leaky Bucket model.