Assessment of The Current Icing Product (CIP) and Forecast Icing Product (FIP) Version 1.1

Abstract

This assessment compares the High-Resolution Current Icing Product (CIP) and Forecast Icing Product (FIP) algorithms version 1.1 developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. These 1.1 products are minor upgrades to the current CIP/FIP version 1.0, and will be combined with 1.2 upgrades released in fall 2014, for deployment to replace the current operational version. There are only two differences in 1.1 versus 1.0, and both are in the CIP: a correction to an aliasing with surface data and the use of METAR reports of cloud data. The assessment incorporates output from the operational CIP/FIP 1.0 algorithms, the experimental CIP/FIP 1.1 provided by NCAR, as well as observations (METARs and PIREPs), to establish a performance baseline. The assessment has three main areas of investigation: 1. Characteristics of the product fields. 2. Overall performance and meteorological accuracy of the CIP/FIP 1.1 as compared to the CIP/FIP 1.0. 3. A geographical comparison of the Hires CIP/FIP 1.1 and Hires CIP/FIP 1.0 fields