WFIP2 The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project: Model Improvement Plans and Preliminary Results

Abstract

The second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2) is a DOE- and NOAA-funded public-private partnership whose goal is to improve numerical weather prediction model forecast skill for turbine-height winds in regions of complex terrain. A field program, with study area located in the Columbia River Gorge and Basin, will span autumn of 2015 through the spring of 2017. Contributions, consisting of instrumentation for observing surface and boundary-layer processes and model development and testing with application to boundary-layer flows in complex terrain, come from DOE National Laboratories (PNNL, ANL, NREL, LLNL), NOAA Laboratories (ESRL, ARL), the Vaisala Inc. team, (Vaisala, NCAR, the University of Notre Dame and University of Colorado, Sharply Focused, Lockheed Martin LLC and the Bonneville Power Administration). A primary objective of WFIP2 is to improve the physical and dynamical schemes used in operational forecast models, specifically NOAA's Rapid Refresh (RAP) and High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR). Model components and capabilities under development include the boundary-layer, surface-layer, and cloud parameterization schemes. Full ?scale-aware? functionality within the boundary-layer and cloud parameterizations will also be developed, thereby making the RAP/HRRR physics suite well suited for a range of applications by the modeling community, regardless of grid spacing. An overview of the model development plans and strategy will be presented. New model physics are tested at 13-km (RAP), 3-km (HRRR), and 0.75-km grid spacing, allowing for the validation of scale-aware functionality as well as the fidelity of model dynamics over steep topography. Preliminary model results incorporating next-generation RAP/HRRR physics, compared against WFIP2 in-situ observations, will be presented for selected cases that are deemed important for wind energy forecasting.