Welcome to John Snook's Home Page
A RAMS mesoscale forecast initialized with LAPS over Georgia.
This is an example of local modeling support provided to the 1996
Summer Olympic Games. Keep reading, for more information.
Where I work:
-
I am a meteorologist who works for
Colorado Research Associates (CoRA),
a division of NorthWest Research Associates (NWRA).
Colorado Research Associates is a small, private research company that
undertakes basic and a smaller amount of applied research in geophysics,
planetary physics and solar physics. CoRA's expertise is primarily in
numerical modeling, theoretical and analytical problem solving and atmospheric
observations at all altitudes.
Projects I work on:
- FORETELL. CoRA is collaborating with
Castle Rock Consultants
to develop high-resolution weather forecast services for the highway
transportation community. The current FORETELL weather system, funded by
the Federal Highway Administration and the State of Iowa, is designed to
provide more detailed
and improved quality forecasts to the Iowa Department of Transportation.
Detailed weather forecasts for a 24 hour period are generated four times
per day using the MM5 high-resolution numerical weather forecast model.
The MM5 forecasts are also used to initialize a highway prediction model
that generates forecasts of pavement temperature and road surface
conditions. The forecasts are used for snow removal decision support and to
provide improved winter highway hazard information to the highway transportation
community.
- October 1997 Rocky Mountain Blizzard and Routt County Forest Blowdown.
The 1997 Rocky Mountain storm of 23-25 October will be remembered for two
impressive weather events: 1) heavy snowfall along the east slopes of
the Rocky Mountains with over four feet of snow observed in the northern
Colorado Foothills and 2) high winds exceeding 100 mph on the west side of
the Continental Divide. Strong winds combined with the snowfall to create
blizzard conditions over the eastern Plains which shutdown the Denver
International Airport. On the other side of the Divide, strong downslope
winds on the morning of the 25th destroyed about 20,000 acres of "old
growth forest" in Routt County, northeast of Steamboat Springs, CO.
According to the United States National Forest Service, this was
the largest known forest blowdown ever recorded in the Rocky Mountain region.
For more information and results from high resolution numerical model forecasts,
check out the
blowdown page.
Proposed projects:
- QSCAT winds.
A
proposal
to investigate whether QSCAT winds can improve mesoscale model predictions.
Other projects:
- Local Analysis and Prediction System
(LAPS)
.
I am a former employee of NOAA's Forecast Systems Laboratory
(FSL).
While at FSL, I focused on the application of numerical mesoscale
forecast models
to operational short-range (0-24 hour) weather prediction. The models are
typically initialized with high-resolution LAPS analyses (e.g.
Colorado LAPS) that have incorporated all available (local and national)
data sources. A variety of mesoscale models have been used, including
the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System
(RAMS),
the Penn State University/NCAR Mesoscale Modeling System
(MM5),
the National Centers for Environmental Prediction
(NCEP)
ETA
model, and the University of Oklahoma's Advanced Regional Prediction System
(ARPS). These two components,
high-resolution analysis and prediction, comprise the FSL-LAPS system.
- Colorado LAPS.
The first application of LAPS uses a 61 x 61 - 10 km
grid covering most of Colorado and a small portion of adjacent states.
Surface and upper air analyses are generated every hour in real-time.
The 0000 and 1200 UTC analyses are used to initialize both the RAMS
and MM5 mesoscale forecast models, and also NCEP's hydrostatic ETA model.
Twelve hour forecasts from RAMS and MM5 are typically available about
4 to 5 hours after start time while 12 hour ETA forecasts are
typically available about 2.5 hours after start time.
Take a look at
3-D images of current Colorado mesoscale forecasts.
- Olympic Games LAPS.
The first true operational application of LAPS was implemented in
the Peachtree City National Weather Service Forecast Office to help support the
Centennial Olympic Games Weather Forecasting effort. LAPS 8-km grid analyses
were generated every 15 minutes for the surface and every half hour for
the upper air on an IBM 39H workstation. LAPS analyses were used to
initialize the RAMS mesoscale forecast model. Operational RAMS forecasts
using either 8 or 2 km horizontal grids were generated on a 30 node IBM SP2
parallel processor. Take a look at some
Centennial Olympic Games weather forecasts. For more information and some
model results, look at my
publications
list.
- RAMS in the National Weather Service.
Following the successful implementation of LAPS and RAMS in the forecast office
that provided the Olympic Games weather support, a similar version of RAMS is
now available to any National Weather Service Forecast office. This version
is designed to operate on existing HP workstation equipment and can be used
for both operational and applied research support. We provide this system
with the permission of
*Aster/MRC
(licensor of RAMS) and in an informal
manner (i.e. we are getting no financial support to do this). The following
offices are currently participating: Brownsville, TX, Las Vegas, NV, Lubbock,
TX, Ruskin (Tampa), FL,
San Juan, PR, Moorehead City, NC, Pueblo, CO, Aberdeen, SD,
Corpus Christi, TX,
and Southern Region Headquarters in
Fort Worth, TX. If you would like more information about this program,
forward e-mail to:
snook@colorado-research.com.
- China LAPS.
The Chinese Meteorological Agency (CMA) invited FSL to install the Olympics
LAPS and RAMS system on their 36 node IBM SP2. John Snook, Pete Stamus, and
Jim Edwards of FSL and Zaphiris Christidis and Lloyd Treinish of IBM
(see
the doctors at work) traveled
to Beijing, China in May 1997 to install the system locally. LAPS is
currently running on a 3 hour cycle using a 2000 x 3000 km grid covering
all of eastern China, including Hong Kong. RAMS is running on demand using
an 840 x 840 km grid positioned anywhere within the LAPS grid. RAMS is
initialized with LAPS and the lateral forecast boundary conditions are
obtained from the CMA regional prediction model.
- Visualization. Viewing the LAPS analyses and the mesoscale model
output in an efficient manner is important. A variety of software packages
have been used to accomplish this, including 3D visualization software such as
AVS, IBM's
Data Explorer, and the U. of Wisc.
Vis5d.
For example, look at
some
LAPS analyses or some
current forecasts for Colorado.
Background information:
Education:
- B.S., 1980, Meteorology,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
- M.S., 1982, Meteorology,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Ph.D., 1993, Meteorology,
Colorado State University
Personal interests:
- I enjoy hiking, climbing, and mountaineering.
View
from the summit of Mt. Rainier.
E-mail: snook@colorado-research.com
Check out the Badger athletics home page.