1. Advances in weather, climate and water forecasting technologies Alasdair Hainsworth Bureau of Meteorology March 2011

2. Overview Recent improvements in Weather and Climate Modelling: Are we making progress? Challenges in Modelling and Improving Forecasts New Forecast Products and Services Future Plans in Modelling and Services

3. Progress in Weather Forecasting Improvements due to Increased supercomputing Improved forecast system (model, physics, initialisation strategy) New observing networks – principally satellite instrumentation Incremental change over long periods Rarely a radical leap in skill Each model builds upon the last and brings an improvement over time

4. New Observations – satellite data Obtain temperatures at various levels and from that derive wind strengths. Still requires some ground truthing for calibration

5. Forecast Verification: Maximum temperature Four day forecast now as good today as “tomorrow's” forecast was around 20 years ago Seven day forecast is now as accurate as “tomorrow's” forecast was around 43 years ago

6. Forecast Verification - Melbourne Rainfall Higher skill Low skill Day 1 Day 3 Day 5 Day 7 Acknowledgement: Dr Harvey Stern (BoM) & Benjamin Levin (Monash University)

7. Future of Climate Forecasting: Dynamical models Climate models are dynamical, being based on the laws of physics – conservation of energy, momentum and mass…

8. Predictive Oceanic Atmosphere Model for Australia (POAMA) V1V1.5 V2 V3 (ACCESS) Improvements due to Increased supercomputing Improved forecast system (model, physics, initialisation strategy) Improved observing networks Process of continual, incremental improvement. Each stage relies upon the last

9. Dynamical models in 2010 La Niña The potential for a La Niña event in 2010 recognised during Autumn. Possibilities described in the Bureau ENSO Wrap product

10. New Products: GFE Grid Overview Grid underlies the spatial image forecasters look at 3/6km resolution Current day out to 7.5 days Guidance interpolated Forecasters define and manipulate gridded fields of sensible weather data Worded forecasts are generated automatically from the forecaster-edited grids Grids at high resolution in Victoria Illustrating idea of underlying Grid

11. NexGenFWS for the User Point-and-click 7 Day Forecasts for 650 (total number when completed) locations Australia wide New forecast presentation graphically via the Forecast Explorer The 7 day forecasts will be a combination of text and graphics to help users plan their week around the weather High resolution forecasts for anywhere in Australia (3 - 6 km resolution)

12. Broad project overview and time-line

13. New Seasonal Streamflow service

14. Future Services: Probabalistic forecasting Provides indication of areas likely to exceed certain thresholds – in this case, winds >20 knots in 6 days time. Not deterministic as per current forecasts, but highlighting where there may be areas of concern.

15. POAMA Seasonal Forecasts Dynamical outlooks provide both probabilistic and deterministic forecasts

16. Intraseasonal predictions; a possibility? Dynamical models and ensembles (running one model a number of times and altering initial conditions slightly) – our conduit to filling the gap between 10-day and seasonal forecasts (not realistically possible with statistical models) Dec 2010

17. Seasonal Forecasts: March to May RAIN Tmax Statistical Model Dynamical Model

18. Summary: The Future… Continual incremental improvements in forecasts GFE rolled out into Vic, NSW. Other states/NT to follow The emerging power of dynamical models is increasingly apparent – particularly using probabilistic techniques POAMA3/ACCESS will build upon progress with POAMA1.5/2 There are opportunities to fill the intraseasonal space Stakeholder survey’s will guide how information is presented to end users.