The Real-Time Verification System (RTVS)

Jennifer Luppens Mahoney*, Judy K. Henderson, Barbara G. Brown, Joan E. Hart, Andrew Loughe, Christopher Fischer, and Beth Sigren.

Verification of weather forecasts is an essential part of any forecast system and is a mechanism for evaluating and tracking forecast performance. Therefore, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) is funding the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) to develop a real-time verification system (RTVS) that provides long-term assessment of National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts, allows users to compare various forecasts through short-term evaluations, and provides interactive verification tools for forecasters and model developers.

The RTVS is a verification system that interpolates forecasts to observation locations in near real time. The interpolated pairs are stored in a relational database management system and are accessed by users through an interactive web-based graphical user interface. The RTVS provides verification statistics and displays of icing, turbulence, convection, ceiling and visibility, and precipitation forecasts from both human and automated forecasts (http://www-ad.fsl.noaa.gov/fvb/rtvs). The first operational version of RTVS was implemented at the Aviation Weather Center with statistics available through the WWW.

The components of RTVS will be demonstrated and its application to aviation weather forecasts will be presented.

Corresponding Author: NOAA/FSL, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, mahoney@fsl.noaa.gov