Ahhh, the evening before the first day of the 2019 SFE….the models are humming, the surveys are waiting in their Chromebooks, and it’s shaping up to be an active week of weather ahead of us! Indeed, the large-scale pattern looks much more favorable for severe weather during the first week of the experiment than it has in years past, when issues with moisture return prevented severe weather from forming for much of the early parts of the experiment.

We have many new and exciting activities for our participants this year, including experimental forecast products such as conditional intensity forecasts and targeted outlooks created using the Warn-On-Forecast System (WoFS), formerly known as the NEWS-e. Yes, you are allowed to yell “WOFS!” at we facilitators if we say “NEWS-e” throughout the experiment…but I can’t guarantee the response you’ll get! Speaking of WoFS, we have 4 hours of evening activities for two participants charged specifically with looking at the WoFS throughout the evening. However, any participants who like will be able to stay and take part in looking at the WoFS throughout the evening. As long as they’re back to evaluate forecasts at 8 AM the next day, we don’t mind at all!

We’re also looking at many new model comparisons. Community Leveraged Unified Ensemble (CLUE) subsets this year include contributions by the Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) with the Finite-Volume Cubed (FV3) dynamical core, as well as two ensembles with a Unified Model dynamical core provided by our friends across the pond, the UK Met Office! Altogether, we have at least eight groups contributing models to the CLUE. We’re very excited to see forecasts from these experimental configurations, getting closer to our ultimate goal of determining the best way to configure a CAM ensemble.

Those are just a few of the examples of exciting things in the works for SFE 2019. Watch this space in the coming weeks for more details about specific comparisons, case studies, and musings on the experiment as a whole. Welcome to the most wonderful time of the year!