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Rapid Refresh (RAP) and High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) Forum

Major upgrade to RUC development run

Posted By: Stan Benjamin
Date: 25-June-04 1534Z

A major set of changes was made on Wed 24 June to the FSL-based RUC 'development' 20-km cycle, the first changes made in about 14 months. These changes have been accumulated over this period in testing in the 'dev2' cycle, and are listed in more detail in the dev2 changelog at ruc.fsl.noaa.gov/dev2_RUC20.changelog.html. The dev RUC continues to run out to 48h every 6h, and also provides initial conditions for the WRF-RUC (WRF-EM v2.0 now, initialized by RUC) over the CONUS (same as RUC) also at 20km resolution.

The dev RUC includes changes in the analysis and model:
Analysis: assimilation of METAR cloud and visibility, revised radar reflectivity assimilation, revised use of PBL depth in assimilation of surface observations, assimilation of raob precipitable water now added (with GPS and GOES PW), improved PW QC checks between raob and GPS values.

Model: revised version of Grell/Devenyi convective scheme (May 2004), NCAR revision of mixed-phase microphysics, separate roughness length table (instead of look-up), more accurate land-water mask, mixing-length calculation in PBL scheme, maintenance of RH (including saturation) in digital filter initialization.

The most important effect of these changes is improved forecasts in the lower troposphere and at the surface. Comments or questions are welcome.

Stan Benjamin

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