The first set of changes described in yesterday's message was made this morning at 16z. The soil moisture was restarted from the backup RUC values, and is much more reasonable now. (For the record, the atmospheric background 1h fcst for the 16z run was also taken from the backup RUC.) With the canopy water problem fixed, the soil moisture should also stay reasonable. The daytime cool/moist bias apparent in the last several days will be much reduced. Also, the 3 sfc stations described yesterday are no longer being used in the RUC analysis as of 16z.

Finally, there was a glitch in the availability of Eta boundary conditions for last night's RUC runs. The 03z and 06z runs did not complete due to this problem. A residual problem near the RUC's western boundary west of WA and OR was left and was apparent even in this morning's 12z and 15z runs. This messy area was removed by the restart of the RUC cycling from the backup RUC at 16z.

Stan Benjamin