HRRR 3KM NOAA Model now has thermal heights!

For those of you who watched Gordon Boettger's downwind wave flights you will remember the HRRR graphics that showed the train of mountain waves. Now, the NOAA GSD people in Boulder, CO have added another field: PBL Height.

PBL stand for the Planetary Boundary Layer which is the thermal height(TI=0). GSD graphics now allow one to animate and pick any one of the 15hr model times showing a colorized evolution of the PBL Height or thermal height. Heights are above ground level (AGL) in meters. Nonetheless, it shows quite vividly convergence zones, stable outflow areas and how precip from convection kills the thermal layer.

Take a look:

http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/

The model runs hourly producing a 15hr forecast. That means you can't look at it the night before your gliding flight, but must check the next morning.. Remember to select a region of the country from the top pull down menu. Also, it's sometimes best to back off to an earlier hour to get all the graphic fields filled out. The PBL Height field is the last one in the list that is populated.

Sometime in August 2014, the HRRR model will go operational with NOAA NCEP. Currently, it's only available on this web site and for restricted use. When operational by NCEP, it will be publicly possible to use other programs that can read OpenDAP and Thredds servers to subset this very high resolution data, allowing visualization at full resolution (over a limited domain) to see what's going on at the 3km resolution. One program I've experimented with is the IDV viewer, from Unidata (http://unidata.ucar.edu/).

Enjoy...

Walt Rogers WX

cool! thank Walt.

Nonetheless, it shows quite vividly convergence zones, stable outflow areas and how precip from convection kills the thermal layer.

Walt, could you elaborate on what these phenomena look like? SZ

Originally Posted by WaltWX[_2_]

Take a look:

http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/



Enjoy...

Walt Rogers WX

Yes, thank you Walt. Great resource...now bookmarked!

Brad.

Wow, we don't have to go cross-eyed anymore trying to see where all the lines intersect on a skew-T diagram. Excellent find Walt.

Thanks Walt,
I have been using this for total & mid level cloud cover, and the Model seems to be dialed in to reality pretty well.

SF

On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 7:22:46 PM UTC-4, WaltWX wrote:
For those of you who watched Gordon Boettger's downwind wave flights you will remember the HRRR graphics that showed the train of mountain waves. Now, the NOAA GSD people in Boulder, CO have added another field: PBL Height.



PBL stand for the Planetary Boundary Layer which is the thermal height(TI=0). GSD graphics now allow one to animate and pick any one of the 15hr model times showing a colorized evolution of the PBL Height or thermal height. Heights are above ground level (AGL) in meters. Nonetheless, it shows quite vividly convergence zones, stable outflow areas and how precip from convection kills the thermal layer.



Take a look:



http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/



The model runs hourly producing a 15hr forecast. That means you can't look at it the night before your gliding flight, but must check the next morning. Remember to select a region of the country from the top pull down menu. Also, it's sometimes best to back off to an earlier hour to get all the graphic fields filled out. The PBL Height field is the last one in the list that is populated.



Sometime in August 2014, the HRRR model will go operational with NOAA NCEP. Currently, it's only available on this web site and for restricted use. When operational by NCEP, it will be publicly possible to use other programs that can read OpenDAP and Thredds servers to subset this very high resolution data, allowing visualization at full resolution (over a limited domain) to see what's going on at the 3km resolution. One program I've experimented with is the IDV viewer, from Unidata (http://unidata.ucar.edu/).



Enjoy...



Walt Rogers WX

Whoa! I've just looked at this and it seems to be way over my head. Is there a guide or users manual? I can't find anything on the page pointing to it.. I'd like the learning curve to be shorter than my remaining lifespan. Thanks!