Operational Weather Forecasting / Advancing Weather and Climate Science (ePub)

This book offers a complete primer, covering the end-to-end
process of forecast production, and bringing together a description
of all the relevant aspects together in a single volume; with
plenty of explanation of some of the more complex issues and
examples of current, state-of-the-art practices.

Operational Weather Forecasting covers the whole process
of forecast production, from understanding the nature of the
forecasting problem, gathering the observational data with which to
initialise and verify forecasts, designing and building a model (or
models) to advance those initial conditions forwards in time and
then interpreting the model output and putting it into a form which
is relevant to customers of weather forecasts. Included is the
generation of forecasts on the monthly-to-seasonal timescales,
often excluded in text-books despite this type of forecasting
having been undertaken for several years.

This is a rapidly developing field, with a lot of variations in
practices between different forecasting centres. Thus the
authors have tried to be as generic as possible when describing
aspects of numerical model design and formulation. Despite
the reliance on NWP, the human forecaster still has a big part to
play in producing weather forecasts and this is described, along
with the issue of forecast verification - how forecast
centres measure their own performance and improve upon it.

Advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students will use this
book to understand how the theory comes together in the day-to-day
applications of weather forecast production. In addition,
professional weather forecasting practitioners, professional users
of weather forecasts and trainers will all find this new member of
the RMetS Advancing Weather and Climate series a
valuable tool.

* Provides an end-to-end description of the weather forecasting
process

* Clearly structured and pitched at an accessible level, the book
discusses the practical choices that operational forecasting
centres have to make in terms of what numerical models they use and
when they are run.

* Takes a very practical approach, using real life case-studies
to contextualize information

* Discusses the latest advances in the area, including ensemble
methods, monthly to seasonal range prediction and use of
'nowcasting' tools such as radar and satellite
imagery

* Full colour throughout

* Written by a highly respected team of authors with experience
in both academia and practice.

* Part of the RMetS book series 'Advancing Weather and
Climate'