LAPS Real Time Forecast Products

The Forecast Application Branch performs high resolution analyses and forecasts of the weather using both locally and centrally available meteorological observations. The FAB Branch is a component of NOAA's Global System's Division.

FAB has been developing and running a high resolution portable analysis and forecast software package called LAPS over the past two decades. The Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) integrates data from virtually every meteorological observation system into a very high-resolution gridded framework centered on a forecast office's domain of responsibility. Thus, the data from local mesonetworks of surface observing systems, Doppler radars, satellites, wind and temperature (RASS) profilers (404 and boundary-layer 915 MHz), radiometric profilers, as well as aircraft are incorporated every hour into a three-dimensional grid covering a 1040km by 1240km area. LAPS has analysis and prediction components. The analysis component has three options, "traditional" LAPS, Space-Time Mesoscale Analysis System (STMAS), and Gridded Statistical Interpolation (GSI). The prediction component is being configured using the RAMS, MM5, WRF, and ETA models. Any or all of these models, usually being initialized with LAPS analyses, are run to provide short-term forecasts. LAPS is an integral part of the Hydrometeorological Testbed (HMT).

The DTC will be evaluating the forecasts from the 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC initializations. Initially only plots from 12 UTC evaluation will be available on the site. The DWR 9KM ensemble (click here to view output) is the primary focus of QPF evaluation. Members of the DWR 9km ensemble include:

arw-tom-gep0

nmm-fer-gep