The Developmental Testbed Center’s Involvement With The Hurricane WRF: An Overview of Community Support , Testing, and Evaluation

Abstract

To expedite the transition of research to operations and to aid in the improvement of hurricane models, the DTC provides user support and rigorously tests new experimental configurations of the Community Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) system. The DTC provides full support for the August 2013 Community version of HWRF (v3.5a), which not only included all of the 2013 operational capabilities, but expansions that made it possible to cover all of the Northern Hemisphere basins, and perform idealized simulations. The code, its documentation, and extensive datasets for the Community release of HWRF can be downloaded from the DTC website (www.dtcenter.org) and, since its original debut in the community, has been made available for more than 700 individual users worldwide. The DTC facilitates HWRF developers from multiple government institutions and universities (e.g. NOAA/NCEP, NOAA/ESRL, UCLA, OU) by providing the infrastructure that makes collaboration and exchanging code more efficient, and allows the DTC to rigorously test new advances in hurricane modeling originating from a variety of sources. This presentation will cover the mechanisms that aid in the transition of research advancements to operations, and the testing activities and procedures at DTC.