Operational Weather Forecasting

This book offers a complete primer, covering the end-to-endprocess of forecast production, and bringing together a descriptionof all the relevant aspects together in a single volume; withplenty of explanation of some of the more complex issues andexamples of current, state-of-the-art practices. Operational Weather Forecasting covers the whole processof forecast production, from understanding the nature of theforecasting problem, gathering the observational data with which toinitialise and verify forecasts, designing and building a model (ormodels) to advance those initial conditions forwards in time andthen interpreting the model output and putting it into a form whichis relevant to customers of weather forecasts. Included is thegeneration of forecasts on the monthly-to-seasonal timescales,often excluded in text-books despite this type of forecastinghaving been undertaken for several years. This is a rapidly developing field, with a lot of variations inpractices between different forecasting centres. Thus theauthors have tried to be as generic as possible when describingaspects of numerical model design and formulation. Despitethe reliance on NWP, the human forecaster still has a big part toplay in producing weather forecasts and this is described, alongwith the issue of forecast verification - how forecastcentres measure their own performance and improve upon it. Advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students will use thisbook to understand how the theory comes together in the day-to-dayapplications of weather forecast production. In addition,professional weather forecasting practitioners, professional usersof weather forecasts and trainers will all find this new member ofthe RMetS Advancing Weather and Climate series avaluable tool. * Provides an end-to-end description of the weather forecastingprocess * Clearly structured and pitched at an accessible level, the bookdiscusses the practical choices that operational forecastingcentres have to make in terms of what numerical models they use andwhen they are run. * Takes a very practical approach, using real life case-studiesto contextualize information * Discusses the latest advances in the area, including ensemblemethods, monthly to seasonal range prediction and use of'nowcasting' tools such as radar and satelliteimagery * Full colour throughout * Written by a highly respected team of authors with experiencein both academia and practice. * Part of the RMetS book series 'Advancing Weather andClimate'