Hi Will,

To answer your questions:

1) height of freezing level is above sea level.

2) model terrain is the lowest z level in the native grid RUC2 file, but you probably aren't getting that, so I guess we should consider putting it in the isobaric main file (where the freezing level stuff is). I've got a call into Peggy Bruehl to ask her advice about this.

3) For Lake Champlain, I regret to say that although there are 3-4 pts over it, they are not defined as water points. There is a single water point in RUC1 over Lake Champlain. In RUC1, the water temps were defined with a monthly climatology and I know that it is pretty goofy for that grid point. Let us know how the low-level behavior is near you. It might be possible to add a few water points for Lake Champlain in the 40km RUC2, but then we need a good way to specify the lake surface temp. For the Great Lakes, we use daily LST data from the Great Lakes Env. Research Lab in Ann Arbor in RUC2. Perhaps the Lake Champlain LST could be set from a value over Lake Ontario? I'm sure it freezes over much earlier, so it could be problematic. Just keep an eye on it and let us know what the RUC2 behavior is.

4) 12h fcsts - I hope that we can try to get these going next week, but not sure. Stay tuned.

5) extension of field test - I just posted another message about the evaluation, and we proposed there to extend it to 26 Dec, another 3 weeks. We need to get some evaluation data in toward writing a subjective eval TPB by the 1st week of Jan.

Good to hear that the sfc temps and winds are doing well.

thx for your help.

Stan