How do operational meteorologists perceive model performance for elevated convection?

Here, we consider why there may be a problem with representing elevated convection and consider how OMs judge the model to be poor so often. Three OMs have subjectively scored and classified observed elevated convection cases over the UK from 2017 to 2020.

Continental plumes (warm, moist, air coming from the near continent or Africa) account for 73% of the cases. The most frequent errors are associated with (i) location, (ii) organisation, (iii) timing and (iv) intensity of the convection. Thus, OMs perceive that the biggest problem with predicting elevated convection is constraining the location of the convective events.