Mesoscale ensemble weather prediction at U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah

This article describes E-4DWX and the innovative way in which it is calibrated, how it performs, why it was developed, and how meteorologists at DPGuse it. E-4DWX has 30 operational members, each configured to produce forecasts of 48 h every 6 h on a 272-processor high performance computer (HPC) at DPG.

The ensemble's members differ from one another in initial-, lateral-, and lower-boundary conditions; in methods of data assimilation; and in physical parameterizations. The predictive core of all members is the Advanced Research core of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model. Numerical predictions of the most useful near-surface variables are dynamically calibrated through algorithms that combine logistic regression and quantile regression, generating statistically realistic probabilistic depictions of the atmosphere's future state at DPG's observing sites.