Change Log for 13-km development RUC version at NOAA/ESRL/GSD

    Main RUC homepage

    This change log starts from October 2003. The starting point for the RUC13 was the code used in the dev RUC20. It runs out to only 12 h as of Feb 2003.

    Oct 2003

    HYBCST, HYBPOST, HYBCST_PRE, Interp
    Started running 13km RUC forecasts initialized with 20km dev2 analyses interpolated to 13km resolution via interp program (written by Tanya Smirnova)

    24 Feb 2004

    HYBFRONT - First 13km version
    Started running analysis from 13km 3h forecast background. However, we are still not cycling yet while we check out performance of the 13km hybfront via web products and verification.

    16 Mar 2004

    HYBFRONT - revised version

    16 April 2004

    RUC cycle
    Began cycling 13km RUC on a 3 hour cycle.

    1 May 2004

    RUC cycle
    Began cycling 13km RUC on a 1 hour cycle.

    28 July 2004

    RUC cycle
    Delayed cycle time for 13km RUC to T+:45 for non synoptic times and T+1:03 at 00Z and 12Z to capture additional observations.

    4 August 2004

    HYBCST - coord.F
    Added negative check for moisture variables. Also, the snow (model glacier) in British Columbia is zeroed out to fit the Canadian analysis at this time of the year.

    30 August 2004

    HYBFRONT - readdrop.f, gtdrop.f, hybing.f, insertd.f, gtpirp.f, readacars.f, gtprof.f, hgt_index_sort_hq.f, dropin.f, readgoes.f, getgoes.f, rd_cld.f, profin.f, getcdw.f, hybcloud.f, MAPSCON, getvad.f, readvad.f, gtrass.f, gtraob.f
    Data ingest update- added dropsonde data, check in ACARS for data source (to screen TAMDAR data), increased bounds in profiler ingest, updated satellite PW ingest for new format, fixed names of satellite data to all reflect west and east instead of satellite number, fixed station names in VAD and RASS, and quality control in gtrass, added go back an hour to gtraob.f. Fixed hybcloud to use 2 instead of 1 for minimum layer- have do loops that subtract one from index, so can't start lt 2. Also changed script to look for PW in new directory and cleaned up satellite soft links to just use E and W instead of satellite numbers (got rid of all references to GOES 8, it's GOES 12 now!)

    2 September 2004 - 1700 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, mk_pbl_obs.f, exsfcobs.f,gtresids_pw.f, hybcloud.f$
    Moved in all hybfront improvements from dev and dev2 runs earlier in spring and summer, designed for improved moisture analysis, PBL-based assimilation of sfc obs, and QC for precipitable water obs.

    8 September 2004 - 1700 UTC

    HYBCST - cup*.F,exmoisg.F,paramr.F,physics_trial.F
    Included new version of Grell/Devenyi cumulus parameterization also implemented into the 20km dev and dev2 RUC model versions earlier this summer.

    13 September 2004 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybhqc.f, gtdrop.f
    Changed QC so that dropsondes are QC'd (were not before due to previous experimental version). Also, fixed gtdrop.f so that no drops with sfc pressure less than 950 will be used (considered to be below the representativeness of the analysis).

    13 September 2004 - 1800 UTC

    HYBPOST - calvis.f, hybint.f, hb2mw.f
    Updated visibility calculation to latest dev2 version, including fixes for nighttime overforecasting of diagnosed fog. Also, visibility diagnostic is not smoothed as of this point.

    14 September 2004 - 0300 UTC

    HYBFRONT - sfcin.f, hybhqc.f
    Use only the first observation from any given surface station each hour. This forces the analysis to use only one ob per station, also the observation closest to the analysis valid time. Also, increase QC threshold by factor of 2x (3x for 21z run) for dropsonde data in buddy check.

    20 September 2004 - 1800 UTC

    HYBCST, HYBCST_PRE -
    Increased number of time steps for initialization from 80 in each direction to 120 (40 min, instead of 26 min). Code is changed so that line in HYBCSTIN is no longer used. The code now figures out the number of time steps needed to cover the same number of minutes are previously used in the 40km and 20km versions of the RUC.

    21 September 2004 - 0000 UTC

    scripts for HYBFRONT (ruc13env)
    Remove access to radar reflectivity and lightning data to match data to be available at NCEP.

    21 October 2004 - 2300 UTC

    HYBPOST - hb2p, mapsout_post.f
    Increase smoothing factors for 13km to match effect from smoothing at 20km. For MSLP and all isobaric level fields.

    22 October 2004 - 1800 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtresids_pw.f, hybanl_qc.f, hybcloud.f, sfcin.f
    Incorporate all changes in dev2 version of hybfront since 14 Sept 04.

    22 October 2004 - 2100 UTC

    HYBCST - inithybv.F
    Increase diffusion constant in upper-level sponge from 0.0015 to 0.0025.

    23 October 2004 - 1200 UTC

    HYBPOST - tropwnd.f
    Within diagnosis of PV fields including tropopause levels, do not allow negative absolute vorticity.

    26 October 2004 - 1800 UTC

    topomini13.dat
    Created a new 13km topomini file, using 2-pass analysis with METAR obs, similar to that done previously for the 20km RUC. Now, eliminated multiple obs within hourly file.
    Previously, the 13km topomini was equivalent to the 13km topoenvl (main terrain file), since the WRF had not allowed the sub-resolution hi-res terrain (previously 10km) from which the initial topomini was derived via trncmp. Therefore, the previous 13km topoenvl file did not fit the METAR elevations as closely as the 20km topomini file. At least now the METAR elevations are fit a little more closely.

    1 November 2004 - 2200 UTC

    HYBCST (cup_forcing_ens.F)
    Change in the convective scheme to reduce the coastal precipitation. Now uses mean vertical motion from level 2 to level of free convection (rather than using just using 3 discrete levels).

    8 November 2004 - 1800 UTC

    HYBPOST (mapsout_post.f)
    Re-integrate heights/Montg vertically to ensure that height, pressure, and theta-v are consistent. They were previously not, due to writing of output without a final re-integration of heights since the last variation of theta-v in coord.F.

    10 November 2004 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT (hybanl_qc.f, hb2p.f, linint.f, gtresids_p.f, MAPSCON)
    Introduce use of isobaric background for z/u/v instead of native coordinate data. Now z is smoothed, as well as u/v. Only applied above 700 mb.

    11 November 2004 - 0400 UTC

    HYBPOST (hybint.f)
    Restore pass for smoothing of forecast visibility grids.

    12 November 2004 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT (sfcin.f)
    Fixed bug in sfcin.f with the wrong index for assigning vis obs. [Also, inadvertently eliminated changes from 10 Nov 00z with isobaric background for z/u/v resids.]

    13 November 2004 - 2000 UTC

    HYBFRONT
    Now hybfront includes changes from both 12 Nov and 10 Nov.

    13 November 2004 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT
    Soil moisture and temperature are replaced by the ones from back-up RUC. Hopefully this will help to improve surface verifications. (The goal was to replace them from operational RUC, but the *grib files from NCEP cannot be read by our wgrib).

    14 November 2004 - 0400 UTC

    HYBPOST (calvis.f)
    Returned to using average of lowest 4 levels for precip hydrometeors only (rain, snow, graupel). Gives much more reasonable vis diagnostics. Continue to use only lowest 2 levels for cloud water and ice, which remains an improvement over the current oper version of calvis.f with its excessive low vis.

    16 November 2004 - 1600 UTC

    HYBCST - inithybv.F, PARAME
    Increase diffusion constant in upper-level sponge from 0.0025 to 0.005. KHMAX is increased from 1/32 to 1/75. NSPGK in PARAME is increased from 6 to 7.

    19 November 2004 - 2100 UTC

    HYBCST - swrad.F
    Changed weights of hydrometeors in the computation of the water path. The intent is to increase the downward short wave radiation in the cloudy areas and areas with precipitation.

    23 November 2004 - 0400 UTC

    HYBFRONT - SETOFEQS
    Increased raob obs errors - height up by 20%, wind up by 10%(at 700 mb) to 60% (at 150 mb).

    24 November 2004 - 1200 UTC

    HYBCST - PARAME
    Number of levels for upper-level sponge decreased from 7 back to 6 levels.

    24 November 2004 - 1600 UTC

    HYBCST - smolar2.F
    Smolar2 is replaced with a more computationally efficient version provided by Jacques Middlecoff. Possible speed-up - ~2%.

    24 November 2004 - 2300 UTC

    HYBPOST - calvis.f
    Now uses max value of cloud water and ice mixing ratio over lowest 2 levels instead of mean value over lowest 2 levels.

    25 November 2004 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - swrad.f
    Change to same coefficients for longwave upward and downward fluxes, as RRTM but unlike the previous lwrad values (now 0.144 for both, previously 0.130 and 0.158 for the two values).

    26 November 2004 - 2100 UTC

    HYBPOST - topomini.dat
    Completed using new topomini based on 3.3km fine topography file. The new file uses min of 4x4 file topo values for each 13km value.

    27 November 2004 - 1800 UTC

    HYBFRONT - MAPSCON, hybanl_qc.f
    Set up obs error factor as a function of obs sub-types (e.g., Mesonet - 515, VAD - 210). The factor for both of these ob types only were set as 1.5. All other obs have errors set as a function of NSRC ob types in SETOFEQS.

    1 December 2004 - 2200 UTC

    HYBCST - swrad.F
    Changed weights of rain and graupel from 0.05 to 0.02 - the same weight as for snow.

    2 December 2004 - 2000 UTC

    HYBCST - swrad.F
    Changed weight of ice in the optical path from 0.1 to 0.05

    3 December 2004 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f
    Fixed coefficients for BAL_NP and moisture 3dvar variable which had been set for 20km, not 13km.

    13 December 2004 - 1700 UTC

    HYBCST - soilvegin1.F
    Frost will be computed based on saturation over ice (TBQ is change for temperatures below freezing).

    15 December 2004 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f -
    Fixed a bug with index incorrectly defined. Now clearing above GOES cloud top should work correctly.

    16 December 2004 - 0600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f -
    Fixed another bug with index incorrectly defined. Now the stability check should work more properly.

    17 December 2004 - 0000 UTC

    HYBPOST - getsta.f, profout.f
    Improved check for BUFR surface data to ensure that land stations are using land-use grid points, and water stations (buoys) are using water grid points.

    17 December 2004 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f -
    Change lowest zenith angle to consider 'daytime' treatment of GOES cloud data from 0.10 to 0.20. Added variable to control this value throughout routine, rather than having to change hard-wired values found in many lines of code. Removed unused code and writing of interim cloud arrays used for debugging.

    20 December 2004 - 2200 UTC

    The RUC-13 cycle is restarted from dev2 RUC-20.
    The model was crashing due to a bad first guess field caused by problems with boundary conditions.

    21 December 2004 - 1500 UTC

    HYBCST_PRE - inithybv_pre.f
    The print of SST/TSO through the Great Lakes region was correct to use grid points relative to 13km grid.

    21 December 2004 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.
    Correct to use stability thresholds for adding cloud with more conservative limit (3K/100mb) near surface instead of 2K/100 mb).

    30 December 2004 - 1800 UTC

    HYBCST - PMICRPH, paramr.F, exmoisg.F
    New version of exmoisg.F from G. Thompson.

    5 Jan 2005 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - sfcin.f, hybcloud.f
    Add 'unknown' precipitation type to list of current weather precip types in which deeper cloud is built in hybcloud.

    6 Jan 2005 - 1800 UTC

    HYBPOST - writeg_coarse.f
    Change to a vertical level-dependency for number of smooth passes.

    8 Jan 2005 - 1600 UTC

    HYBPOST - hybint.f
    Modification to precip type algorithms.
    Rain - indicate now for 1.e-3 instead of 1.e-2 cm/h rate. This increases area of rain area and freezing rain area. Was too limited before, and definitely inconsistent w/ snow coverage.
    Graupel vs. RA/FZ types - Implemented a choice based on predominant p-type. Now use graupel instead of rain if graupel rate > rain rate. Choose rain (or FZ) if rain rate > 4x graupel rate. Was previously getting almost 100% same coverage for FZ and IP, so this change produces now a reasonable overlap but also a better distinction. for number of smooth passes.

    20 January 2005 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - exmoisg.F
    Further revision of exmoisg.F after further meeting between Greg Thompson, Roy Rasmussen and John Brown.

    29 Jan 2005 - 0000 UTC

    HYBPOST - write_grib.f, tropwnd.f
    Fix proper dx/dy setting for 20km and 40km output from RUC13. Also, now use grid ID 130, set by NCEP for RUC13 grid. Also, fix a rare possible crash condition in tropwnd.f to avoid a divide by zero.

    30 Jan 2005 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, humisubs.f, gtresids.f, gtresids_pw.f, gtresids_sfc_tquv.f, hybhqc.f, VARPRMS
    Change moisture control variable from ln-qv (log of water vapor mixing ratio) to pseudo-RH (RH relative to background temperature/pressure field). This version now combines assimilation of in situ moisture observations (surface and raob) and precipitable water into a single variational calculation of the 3-d moisture analysis increment (correction from background).

    30 Jan 2005 - 0300 UTC

    HYBFRONT - rd_cld.f, hybcloud.f -
    Fix some problems with the cloud analysis, including improving coherence of GOES cloud top data by mapping fields-of-view onto a slightly larger RUC13 volume, and fixing to ensure that METAR-related cloud clearing is relative to a constant height rather than height above model terrain.

    2 Feb 2005 - 1400 UTC

    HYBPOST - writeg_coarse20.f writeg_coarse.f
    Remove horizontal smoothing of 2m dewpoint.

    8-17 Feb 2005

    HYBFRONT - humisubs.f, hybanl_qc.f, gtresids_pw.f
    Improved treatment of precipitable water, including use of using 3-d weighting of background error and observation errors using background saturation value such that precipitable water assimilation has an implicit vertical weighting. Lots of diagnostics added also. Also, some revision of limits on moisture analysis increment fields.

    17 Feb 2005- 1300 UTC

    HYBPOST - mapsout_post.f
    Use specific humidity, not mixing ratio, for precipitable water calculation.

    23 Feb 2005- 2300 UTC

    HYBFRONT - profin.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Fixes to arguments/parameters for profin.f (called by hybing.f) and call to hybcloud (from hybanl_qc.f).

    HYBCST - hybcstdv.F
    Comment out call to mapsout after completion of initialization.

    7 Mar 2005- 2200 UTC

    HYBCST - sfctmp.F
    Corrected computation of snow albedo in the areas of thin snow cover (below 10 cm). The albedo in such areas should be interpolated between snow-free albedo for the land-use type (not defined before the correction) and snow albedo equal to 0.7. Now the snow-free albedo IS defined. The correction should increase the albedo in such areas and make them colder. Probably thin layers of snow will stay slightly longer now than before the correction.

    8 Mar 2005- 2200 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtprof.f, profin.f ,hybhqc.f
    Fixed gtprof.f to have number of levels for external wind profiler data at 50 (maximum number in netcdf files), having larger number was causing array problems. Number of levels in the netcdf files were not reliable, so just counting them internally (qc seems to be reliable). Also added output for otype 204 (external profiler), and added print of otype in hybhqc output to better track what obs we are throwing out.

    9 Mar 2005- 0500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - getmnet.f
    Changed to not use mesonet wind obs until problems are fixed.

    13 Mar 2005- 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - humisubs.f
    Changed scaling for OEQ and FGQ from qv_sat to sqrt(qv_sat).

    25 Mar 2005- 2000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f
    Reset ob location in BUFTIN and BUFQIN from oi2/oj2/ok2 just before univariate analysis section. This is a big fix.

    31 Mar 2005- 2200 UTC

    HYBCST - inithybv.F, sfctmp.F
    The critical snow depth is changed to depend on snow density. The albedo will now take into account the effects of snow "patchiness" at larger snow depths, especially in the cold areas where the snow density is lower. It will help to increase the melting rate.

    7 Apr 2005- 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybhqc.f
    Copied background from NCEP to avoid extreme coldness spot near MT/AB/SA border. This was later this evening determined to be a problem with mesonet surface pressure, which was converted into a far-too-cold surface theta-v.

    7 Apr 2005- 0400 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybhqc.f
    Flag surface theta and moisture (p-RH) obs if the surface pres/elev is flagged. This avoids bad surface theta-v obs getting in that were due to elevation problem.

    7 Apr 2005- 0500 UTC

    HYBPOST - mapsout_post.f
    Do not use 2m qv -- just use 5m qv. There was a lot of spots showing up in the 2m dewpoint from discontinuities in soil/skin temperature fields from melting snow spots. The use of the reduction to 2m was exaggerating the local variations.

    7 Apr 2005- 1200 UTC

    HYBPOST - mapsout_post.f
    Similar to change from last night, now do not allow theta at 2m to be any lower than 2 K less than the 5m theta-v. This avoids from exaggerating (but not eliminating) the cold spots over snow cover areas where 2m temps in RUC13 web products were showing up about 20-30 deg F lower than surrounding grid points.

    8 Apr 2005- 0400 UTC

    HYBFRONT - raobin.f
    Fix to nasty bug, moved loop filling obs arrays with flags previous to station loop, not inside station loop. This fixes losing the first 2 raobs at NCEP, and parts of 2-3 raobs subsequent to beginning at FSL, dependent on how many raobs were read in from /public.

    30 Apr 2005- 0200 UTC

    HYBFRONT- hybanl_qc.f, pirepin.f , ruc13env script
    Identify Canadian aircraft separately as otype=428. Add to ob_grid_stats output. Remove external profiler data by changing ruc13env script to dummy directory.

    1 May 2005- 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT- NORMA.DAT
    Correct NORMA.DAT to intended value, same as that used in 20km oper RUC.

    2 May 2005- 0400 UTC

    HYBFRONT- SETOFEQS, hybanl_qc.f
    3 changes - 1)return to 20km values for OEQ for raob wind/height values. Will force more fit to winds aloft. 2) do not use CNJ (Canadian jets) anymore for now due to larger O-B values. 3) adjust soil moisture nudging so that moistening is 1/2 of that previously, and also now allow soil drying as well as moistening.

    25 May 2005- 1900 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f
    Corrected soil moisture nudging - should be done when there is no clouds during the day. (The "if" statement worked the opposite way before).

    26 May 2005- 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - sfcin.f
    Added check for at least 100 METARS, otherwise don't use any mesonet stations.

    09 June 2005 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - pirepin.f, "REJCTAIR"
    Adapted pirepin to read new reject list format, now can blacklist by variable (T,W,R). New rejctair file from Bill Moninger created from information gathered the last week of May 2005. Also fixed bug where U,V were not initialized with flag- so when no ACARS winds (very rare), the previous winds were still in the variable.

    17 June 2005 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - pirepin.f
    Fixed logical NO_TEMP to be initialized to FALSE for each station before checking for missing or bad temperatures. ACARS with only good observation of T were being tossed after the first time NO_TEMP was set to true. This only became an issue after new blacklist would flag winds and not temperatures. Also added counters for number of observations of each type being flagged.

    20 June 2005 - 2100 UTC

    HYBPOST - mapsout_post.f
    For plotting convinience the boundary values of soil temperature and moisture are filled in now at all levels rather than only at the top 2 levels as it was before.

    21 June 2005 - 2100 UTC

    HYBFRONT - pirepin.f, gtpirp.f, ob_grid_stats.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Fixed bug in gtpirp.f that only allowed observations with all three variables through to PIREPIN. Also added more print statements to pirepin and fixed logical NO_TEMP to be reset to false for each observation before checking for a valid temperature, then setting to TRUE if no valid temperature is found. Put new version of ob_grid_stats into hybanl_qc, this version also breaks down residuals by pressure level.

    28 June 2005 - 1200 UTC Operational implementation of RUC13 at NCEP.

    This log will continue for experimental RUC13 at FSL.

    26 July 2005 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - pirepin.f
    Fixed bug with THETAP variable going out to the analysis was not always overwritten with flag when there was no temperature data, so sometimes carried previous station temperature data in it.

    10 Aug 2005 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, pirepin.f
    hybanl_qc.f - Reinstate smoothing of native background fields for u/v only, similar to previously used in 20km RUC 3dvar. This was overlooked with the consideration of the isobaric-based residuals with the development of the RUC13 3dvar (eventually decided not to use). The smoothing of temp and qv is now removed, since ob_grid_stats showed that this was NOT reducing mean-abs residuals for those variables.
    pirepin.f - Add Southwest Airlines to OTYPE and modify comment.

    11 Aug 2005 - 2000 UTC

    HYBCST - cup_forcing_ens.F
    Instate version from 20km_dev, which does not pressure average the vertical velocity and does not zero out the moisture convergence closure contribution over water.

    13 Aug 2005 - 2000 UTC

    topoenvl.dat
    Introduced more detailed version of 13km topography, as originally intended. The version in the operational RUC13 is smoother than originally intended, since there was some unadvertised smoothing in the WRF_SI used.

    19 September 2005 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - rejctair.dat
    New aircraft reject list.

    20 September 2005 - 1800 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, gtresids_pw.f
    Addition of ob-bkg residual threshold checks before applying buddy check. This change was prompted by recognition in TAMDAR of lack of buddies for more robust QC of problematic obs.

    20 September 2005 - 2300 UTC

    HYBCST - cup_forcing_ens.F, cup_output_ens.F, cupnew_h.F, physics_trial.F, CUGREL
    Correction in output (precipitation, temperature and moisture tendencies) to properly normalize for number of closures used at each grid point.

    4 October 2005 - 0300 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, ob_grid_stats.f, exsfcobs.f
    Improved bkg_thresh and O-B stats, much cleaner now. Also, finally began to enforce 50mb difference in exsfcobs, flagging all obs if 50mb diff between ob and background is exceeded.

    21 October 2005 - 1700 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtresids_sfc_tquv.f
    Finalized code fixes for coastal stations. Now use land stations over water if station elevation is less than 35 m (20m setting over last week). This now catches, for instance, Key West.

    3 November 2005 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - rejctair.dat
    New aircraft reject list, based on statistics from 5-Oct through 3-Nov-2005. (WRM)

    22 November 2005 - 1800 UTC

    HYBCST - hybcstdv.F
    Introduced diabatic DFI to RUC model to improve consistency with physics in DFI, but also to prevent against intermittent crashes during forward step with 13km RUC and more detailed topo.

    29 November 2005 - 1900 UTC

    HYBCST - hybcstdv.F
    Eliminated write of half-initialized fields (after backward DFI pass). This may have been overwriting analysis data for ijet prsver raob stats for the 13km dev RUC.

    17 December 2005 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - cupnew_h.F, cup_kbcon.F
    Fixed bug -- add i index for cap_max_increment array used for ensemble cap threshold.

    21 December 2005 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - cup_forcing_ens.F
    Reduce precip over oceans by forcing Grell closure to run only with small cap.

    21 December 2005 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f
    Modification to O-B threshold check. Now allow 2x larger innovations for winds over water (assuming that this sort of represents data-sparse regions).

    27 Jan 2006 - 0200 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Fix to bug in which rain water water being cleared below METAR ceiling when METAR was also indicating precip (exactly the opposite of what should have happened).

    27 Jan 2006 - 2300 UTC

    HYBCST - hybcstdv.F, hybcst_trial.F, coord.F
    Change to diabatic DFI so that original RH is used after full DFI step, not just as a low-end limit (max check). Also, the analyzed hydrometeor mixing ratios are also restored post-DFI. So now, the diabatic DFI still produces more of a diabatic balance with the mass/wind fields and is also more robust, but we restore the analyzed RH and q* fields to keep it quite close to the obs themselves for these moisture variables.

    1 Feb 2006 - 1000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - readraob.f, gtraob.f
    went back to a previous version before changes about no. of sig levels was inadvertently included in the 27 Jan hybfront change.

    7 February 2006 - 1800 UTC

    HYBCST - coord.F, hybcstdv.F
    Fix so that vertical regridding still occurs for hydrometeor mixing ratio variables.

    8 February 2006 - 1800 UTC

    HYBFRONT - readraob.f, gtraob.f, MAPSCON
    Increased maximum number of significant level data (thermodynamic) to 175 from 150, and maximum number of significant wind levels from 75 to 80, as was implemented in a new RAOB CDL here today. Also increased MAPSCON variable SND_LEV_P from 208 levels to 280 levels.

    10 February 2006 - 04,20 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, gtresids_sfc_tquv.f
    Damp soil temp nudging near coastline via new coast_prox(i,j) array. Also, use 5m temp instead of 2m temp over oceans.

    12 February 2006 - 04 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, gtresids_sfc_tquv.f
    Additional fixes for selecting land vs. water point selection for background value for coastal sfc ob. Now, the logic allows 3 choices - 1) the interpolated value, a land point from among the 4 surrounding points, and 3) (new) a water point from among the 4 surrounding points.

    17 February 2006 - 04 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybhqc.f
    Added code to spam all reports from any aircraft with mean temp differences from background over 2K for at least 20 reports during the hour. UPS aircraft this morning caused a real glitch in the operational RUC 500mb heights (and other levels).

    3 March 2006 - 21 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtresids_sfc_tquv.f
    Corrected error in which coastal residuals was be applied as possible choice for minimum residual in subsequent land stations. This error was dependent on the particular sequence of stations being processed.

    15 March 2006 - 1700 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtpirp.f
    Modified code to only read one file (the file from the hour before the analysis time up through the analysis time), and also updated the qc quality control checks - had to take the quotes away from the byte/integer ascii values, now just checking the integer value, no quotes.

    8 May 2006 - 1900 UTC

    HYBFRONT - MAPSCON, hybcloud.f
    Mesonet raw data coming in now over 40000, so upped NSTA_P in MAPSCON to 70000, and MXST_P to 150000. Also discovered bug in hybcloud.f where if min_cloud_lev_p=1, had k-1 in loop so would be indexing arrays by 0, so changed min_cloud_lev_p to 2 so it never goes below 1.

    31 May 2006 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - MAPSCON, getmnet.f, hybcloud.f
    Slightly modified the earlier fixes to better utilize space and address lowest level of visibility. MAPSCON has a new parameter, RDSTA_P, set to 70,000 and used in getmnet.f (also passed into readmnet.f). The min_cloud_lev_p has been set back to 1, but in the critical do loop where layer calculations were being done, the loop is set to go from min_cloud_lev_p +1 to nztn_p.

    8 June 2006 - 2100 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtresids_pw.f
    Add extra print statements for PW residuals depending on if surface pressure difference between the observation and model background is positive or negative. GPS residuals data is now written out to PW-resid files for GSD-GPS monitoring.

    10 June 2006 - 2100 UTC

    HYBFRONT - readacars.f, gtpirp.f, pirepin.f, hybanl_qc.f, hybhqc.f, gtresids_pw.f
    TAMDAR aircraft observations are added to this RUC cycle after extensive testing in the dev-2 20km RUC cycle over the last year.
    Wind residual bias is now monitored (in hybhqc.f) and observations with at least 20 obs and u or v component bias is at least 4 m/s are now flagged. This is similar to the previous mean O-B check for temperature on 17 Feb 2006.

    1 Aug 2006 - 1200 UTC

    HYBFRONT- hybanl_qc.f
    Increase soil temperature nudging as temperature increased from 10 C to 25 C (by a factor of up to 2x over what was previously in).

    8 Aug 2006 - 2100 UTC

    HYBPOST - tq2uv10.f, NDFDgrid.f
    Correction to 2m estimate of temp (and indirectly, dewpoint). Now, qvg (water vapor mixing ratio at surface/skin) is NOT used in the 2m temp estimate. The 2m dewpoint, which maintains the original dewpoint depression from the original value, will also be affected. This will decrease warm/moist biases in the 2m T/Td values.

    10 Aug 2006 - 2300 UTC

    HYBFRONT - getmet.f
    Adjustment to METAR dewpoints- if the station type is AO1 (no precip, likely AWOS), AND the dewpoint temperature is greater than 20C, then flag the dewpoints with SPVAL.

    20 Aug 2006 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST_PRE - inithybv_pre.f
    Introduced or re-introduced climo lake surface temps over Great Salt Lake, Salton Sea, Midwest lakes, etc.

    C  Assign SST/LST values using either nearby SST point considered
    C    to be reliable from SST14K data,
    C        ---  OR  -----
    C    from climatological values.
    C --- For Lake Nipigon, use point for n. Lake Superior
    C   -- Lake Nipigon is deep!
    C --- For Lake of the Woods and other
    C      Minnesota lakes, use point for n. Lake Winnipeg
    C    -- These lakes are NOT DEEP!
    
    C --- For Canadian lakes, including Winnipeg, Manitoba, Winnipegosis,
    C      use point for n. Lake Winnipeg
    C    -- These lakes are NOT DEEP!
    
    C --- Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake -- Utah - climo
    
    C --- Salton Sea -- California - climo
    
    C --- Lake Champlain -- Vermont - climo
    

    21 September 2006 - 2000 UTC

    HYBPOST - hybint.f, NDFDgrid.f, readg.f, writeg.f, write_grib.f, makefile, ruc13env, post_file, grib.table
    Enabled hybpost to write out the ndfd grids in grib. This was made possible by using an updated grib library from Chris Harrop and modifying grib reading/writing routines. This new library requires ALL grib table entries to be present to run. If a variable is added to hybint without the proper grib table entry, hybpost will stop. In addition to the fortran code changes, the scripts were also updated to point to needed files and the new output directory.

    2 October 2006 - 1900 UTC

    HYBFRONT - readcdw.f, getcdw.f
    Fix to the ascii format in reading the NESDIS hourly cloud-drift wind files. NESDIS changed the format late last week.

    27 October 2006 - 1900 UTC

    HYBFRONT - raobin.f
    Out of bounds error in RAOBIN was causing number of sources to be set to 0, so hybfront would exit before running the analysis. Fixed RAOBIN by moving the last check of pwobs into the proper section just above.

    7 December 2006

    HYBCST - PARAME
    Changed from 99 procs down to 54 procs to improve throughput.

    27 December 2006 - 2100 UTC

    HYBCST - soilvegin1.F, sfctmp.F
    Soilvegin1 - changed soil compaction constant from 0.1 to 0.26. Sfctmp - changed formulation for fresh snow density from a low limit now of 100 (kg/m**3) instead of the previous 50. This increases the compaction of fresh snow and dampens the previous excessive radiative cooling of fresh snow.

    PARAME
    Increased from 54 procs (9x6) to 96 procs (12x8) to increase runtime

    HYBEXT - hybext.f
    Smoothing added to external model data to improve robustness in situations with very noisy external model data. This change fixes a crash for the RUC from the 06z 21 Nov 2006 case. Also prepared to use NAM data out to 84h.

    HYBCST_PRE - inithybv_pre.f
    Modified treatment for treatment of ice and water temperature for small lakes, mostly over the north central US and central Canada.

    HYBPOST - NDFDgrid.f

    29 December 2006 - 2100 UTC

    HYBCST - hybcstdv.F
    Commented out vertical profiles of DFPA, etc. during DFI, which uses serial code and takes a LONG time. This speeds up the hybcst run time.

    HYBFRONT - SETOFEQS
    Increase obs error for raob u/v wind components by up to 30% for 300-150 hPa and above. This is in response to NCEP statistics showing that the RUC fits raob winds much more closely than the NAM or GFS, even though upper-level raob winds are clearly not as accurate as aircraft or profiler winds.

    4 January 2007 - 2000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - run.13.hybfront
    Changed REJCTAIR soft link to point to new directory of daily reject lists for aircraft. The new link points to /p40/naos-ruc/13km/rejectlist/current_bad_aircraft.txt

    7 January 2007 - 0500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - raobin.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Added new reference table for raob sites using GPS positioning. GPS-sondes now use otype=350 (dropsonde changed to 340), and from the otype, different wind obs errors are specified now in hybanl_qc.f. GPS-sondes are allowed to use the previous (quite small, maximizing 1.3 m/s at upper levels) wind obs error specifications, but non-GPS sondes now use somewhat larger wind obs errors, at 1.9x for 300-150mb (and above).

    8 January 2007 - 1900 UTC

    HYBPOST - hybint.f
    Changed ceiling diagnostic to NOT use vertical interpolation in lowest 4 native levels.

    29 January 2007 -

    HYBFRONT -
    First version to use mesonet winds for some providers. Inadvertently backed out the GPS-sonde change from 7 Jan 07.

    6 February 2007 - 2000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, sfcin.f, ob_grid_stats.f, getmnet.f, readmnet.f, pirepin.f, gtresids.f, gtresids_sfc_tquv.f
    Revised version to use mesonet winds for some providers. Added back in the GPS-sonde change from 7 Jan 07.

    February 2007 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f, HYBCST - physics_trial.F, inithybv.F...
    Radar-reflectivity assimilation via latent heat specification added in RUC model diabatic digital filter initialization (DDFI).

    Late February 2007

    HYBPOST - calrefl.f, hybint.f, paramr.F, fgamma.F, PMICRPH
    A new product is now being produced for maximum reflectivity within the column. This is calculated from the 3-d hydrometeor fields (rain, snow, graupel) using Z-R relationships consistent with the NCAR-Thompson microphysics used in the RUC model. The RUC reflectivity product also includes a component from the sub-grid-scale convective hourly precipitation. The reflectivity has been added to the real-time web products from the developmental RUC13.

    1 March 2007 - 1700 UTC

    HYBFRONT - sfcin.f, getpfs.f, getboy.f, getmnet.f
    Adapted these routines to match the calling lists/structure of the NCEP versions for easy portability between locations. NCEP versions were passing "num_of_sta" array index into the get routines and using the indexing based on num_of_sta inside the get routines, while the GSD versions used the num_of_sta indexing outside of the routines in the passing of the arrays from sfcin. Now they all pass num_of_sta into the get routines and do the indexing there.

    2 Mar 2007

    HYBCST - RRTM longwave radiation replacing previous Dudhia RRTM scheme.

    6 March 2007 - 2000 UTC

    HYBPOST - calrefl.f
    Correction to properly calculate reflectivity from graupel.

    23 March 2007 - 1900 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Add clearing of rain, snow, graupel according to echo-free 3-d volumes per radar data. Add proxy reflectivity from lightning data. Reduce smooth passes from 3x to 2x.

    24 March 2007 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Reduce tten_radar factor from 5 to 2.5. Model reflectivity was too hot.

    25 March 2007 - 0000 UTC

    ruc13env script
    Put back in GOES precipitable water data, which had been removed in summer 2006 after GOES problems. It should have been returned some time ago, but is finally now.

    10 Apr 2007 - 1300 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Reduced tten_radar factor from 2.5 to 1.5. [NOTE: backup RUC code was updated on 4/3/07 to match the devRUC code. This is the first change since then to again distinguish the devRUC13 vs. the backup RUC13.]

    13 Apr 2007 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - SETOFEQS, hybhqc.f, gtresids_pw.f, hybanl_qc.f, gtpirp.f
    Correct specification of observation and background error for moisture. Result overall -- less overfitting of in-situ and PW obs, and more accurate RH forecasts according to 8-day retrospective test (Jamison, Moninger).

    13 Apr 2007 - 1500 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Use satellite data to screen radar data. Also, nudge qv (water vapor mixing ratio) now from 10-30 dbZ (previously 5-25 dbZ) and with 0.7 (instead of 0.9) reduction of subsaturation.

    26 Apr 2007 - 0100 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Start now at 20dbZ if temp > 4C, using Jian Zhang's info from NSSL. Use smaller dbZ if reflectivity might be for snow. Also, reduce reduction to 0.6 if temp > 4C.

    1 May 2007 - 1400 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Change factor for reduction of subsaturation from 0.8 to 0.3.

    1 May 2007 - 1400 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f
    Change factor for reduction of subsaturation from 0.8 to 0.3.

    2 May 2007 - 0200 UTC

    HYBFRONT-hybcloud.f,hybanl_qc.f
    HYBCST - inithybv.F
    Write out RADYN for convective suppression zone from hybfront and read into hybcst as extra variable now in tten_radar file. As discovered 4 days later, the correct code in cupnew_h.F was not properly included at this time.

    6 May 2007 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - cupnew_h.F
    Corrected code to use suppression of parameterized convection by setting cap depth to 1 hPa.

    23 May 2007 - 0000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtresids_pw.f
    Much improved calculation of background values of PW-sat and PW-rh residuals (O-B). Now using horizontal interpolation of these variables (not nearest neighbor) and now applying elevation corrections.

    16 July 2007 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - physics_trial.F
    Current version - cupfr=1 min (previous oper - 4 min). Also includes 1-pass 1-4-1 smooth of outtem and outtq. Since 25 June, have varied cupfr from 1 min to every dynamics time step (20 sec) to every 2 dynamics time steps. Tests by Tanya Smirnova showed that changing cupfr from 4 min to 20 sec increases hybcst run time by 31%, quite a bit.

    1 August 2007 - 2000 UTC

    HYBFRONT - sfcin.f
    Cleaned up the rejection of observations without pressure, needed to deincrement stacount after rejecting pressure ob, before jumping to end of 1050 loop.

    4 August 2007 - 2000 UTC

    HYBCST - physics_trial.F
    1-4-1 smooth pass of outtem and outtq moved in code ahead of application of tendencies. Previous version used unsmoothed tendencies in first application (#1 of 4 dynamic time steps with cupfr=1.0 min). Now, all application of outtem and outtq are using smoothed version.

    4 September 2007 - 1600 UTC

    HYBFRONT - gtresids.f, hybing.f, readdrop.f, sfcin.f
    HYBPOST - calvis.f, NDFDgrid.f

    4 September 2007 - 1700 UTC

    HYBCST_PRE - gribst.f
    Several RUC routines (hybfront, hybpost, hybcst_pre) required variables to be initialized for wjet compiler.

    5 September 2007 - 2200 UTC

    HYBFRONT - readacars.f, gtpirp.f, pirepin.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Modified aircraft data ingest to check for tamdar carrier variable and to exclude any observations that aren't Mesaba.

    6 September 2007 - 1700 UTC

    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f
    Inadvertently left out oeq adjustment for Mesaba winds yesterday, this is fixed now.

    19 September 2007 - 2100 UTC

    HYBFRONT - humisubs.f
    Maximum value for saturation water vapor mixing ratio in vertical normalization of background error specification was changed from 20 g/kg to 5 g/kg. The latter result showed improved RH forecasts from the Nov-Dec2006 retrospective tests done by Brian Jamison.

    28 September 2007 - 1800 UTC

    HYBCST - physics_trial.F
    Georg Grell's version using circular (not square) spreading of subsidence feedback in the G-D scheme.

    3 Oct 2007 - 0000 UTC

    HYBCST - physics_trial.F, coord.F
    Further variation of 28 Sept version, #1 now adding 1.e-2 cm/hr as smaller limitation to cut off convection if explicit scheme is active, and #2, use time-relaxed version of coord.F, restoring only 10% toward the target variable in each time step (instead of 100%). Also #3, return cup frequency to 4 min (not every 1 min).

    Noise information below, lowest noise with
    1. cupdf=4 min, new relaxed coord
    [smirnova@g0800 13km]$ grep DPMAX ruc13_test.o8594908
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN    86   245    0.90432E-03   -9.23976      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN    77   290    0.94908E-03    4.03604      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   450   277    0.61333E-03    1.96874      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   357   245    0.12352E-02    2.35485    180
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   373   241    0.62507E-03    2.54741    360
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   374    63    0.60296E-03    2.50726    540
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   328   271    0.60058E-03    2.46793    720
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   412   228    0.10098E-02    2.63371    900
    
    2. cupfr=4min, old coord
    [smirnova@g0800 13km]$ grep DPMAX ruc13_test.o8594488
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN    86   245    0.90432E-03   -9.23976      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN    96   255    0.11132E-02    4.27369      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   450   277    0.64898E-03    1.97783      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   236     8    0.72825E-03    2.58992    180
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   389   236    0.83512E-03    2.85137    360
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   400   234    0.13111E-02    2.89697    540
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   391   233    0.10227E-02    2.86190    720
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   337   231    0.84847E-03    3.10156    900
    
    3. cupfr=1min, old coord
    [smirnova@g0800 13km]$ grep DPMAX ruc13_test.o8586911
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN    86   245    0.90432E-03   -9.23976      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN    96   255    0.11132E-02    4.27369      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   450   277    0.64886E-03    2.04076      0
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   337   253    0.93842E-03    2.81453    180
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   324   243    0.10762E-02    3.16369    360
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   391   235    0.13670E-02    3.16843    540
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   347   242    0.12218E-02    3.23128    720
    I,J,DPMAX,DELPMN   370   261    0.12491E-02    3.52409    900
    
    

    28 Nov 2007 - 0000 UTC


    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Changes to hybcloud over last few weeks to improve use of METAR ceiling data, including:
    HYBPOST - hybint.f
    Effect of snow on ceiling was also removed -- seemed to be having too much effect.

    17 Dec 2007 - 2000 UTC


    HYBPOST - hybint.f
    Use 10-m wind speed (not 5-m lowest native) for minimum for wind gust speed. Also, allow a 0.5K slop for the theta difference between levels 1 and 2. Previously, this was done only for level 1 vs. levels 3 and above.

    22 January 2008 - 2200 UTC


    HYBFRONT - run.13.hybfront script
    Fixed script to look for goes-11 precipitable water.

    28 March, 4 April 2008 - 2200 UTC


    HYBPOST -mapsout_post.f
    Changed diagnosis for 2m dewpoint so that it uses a mean water vapor mixing ratio through the boundary layer. This seems to avoid a moist bias that was often shown from the previous 2m dewpoint diagnostic, which was too tied to the soil moisture.

    24 April 2008 - 1500 UTC


    MAPS_PARMS, HYBCST_PRE - soilvegin.f
    Switch to use soiltex.dat, vegtype_usgs.dat, topoenvl.dat and rough_frac.dat produced using version 3 of WPS (WRF Pre-processing System). The new static fields fit better the water-land mask than previous fields produced by WRF SI.

    ~5 May 2008


    HYBCST
    Change back to version of Grell-Devenyi convective scheme without non-local subsidence, after statistics showed that this was causing poorer upper-level wind forecasts.

    29 July 2008 - 0000 UTC


    HYBFRONT - readbuoy.f, getboy.f, sfcin.f exsfcobs.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Changes to allow much improved use of buoys. Changes fixed errors, especially to assume buoy pressure is in Pa (like most other obs). without non-local subsidence, after statistics showed that this was causing poorer upper-level wind forecasts.

    5 Aug 2008 - 2000 UTC


    HYBFRONT - readgoes.f, getgoes.f, hybing.f, MAPSCON, run.13.hybfront
    Add 1x1 FOV GOES precipitable water obs back into devRUC13.

    5 Aug 2008 - 2000 UTC


    HYBFRONT - SETOFEQS
    Increase OEQ for GOES PW from 0.03 to 0.05, now matching the background error (FGQ). GPS PW OEQ remains the same at 0.02. This helps GPS PW from being swamped by the ~50K GOES PW obs now available after change earlier this afternoon.

    6 Aug 2008 - 1900 UTC


    HYBFRONT - getgoes.f,gtresids_pw.f
    Limit GOES PW obs to take only one of out 10, and also limit GOES PW obs to over water only.

    Nov 2008


    HYBFRONT - hybanl_qc.f, hybcloud.f, new *LaRC*.f read routines
    Addition of NASA Langley cloud products instead of NESDIS cloud products. NASA Langley products cover more of the RUC domain than the NESDIS products (more over Canada and oceans), and include a liquid/ice water path fields from which cloud depth is now inferred in the RUC cloud assimilation algorithm.

    Dec 2008


    HYBFRONT - hybcloud.f, hybanl_qc.f
    Further changes to RUC cloud assimilation, including call to cloud assimilation module now at end of RUC analysis to better ensure saturation water vapor accompanying 3-d grid points with non-zero cloud water/ice hydrometeor fields to initialize RUC model.
    HYBCST - coord.F
    Modification to force same vertical regridding for all hydrometeor prognostic variables as used for water vapor, to better ensure retention of clouds, especially thin cloud layers.

    6 March 2009


    HYBCST - gcipstuff.F, physics_trial.F, exmoisg.F
    HYBPOST - hybint.f
    Fixes to correct the accumulated runtotal precip.

    9 March 2009 20 UTC


    HYBFRONT - readmnet.f, getmnet.f
    scripts RUC13_backup.xml, hybfront.ksh
    Adapted to read MADIS mesonet files and use their QC, also needed to point MESODIR to MADIS directory, and MESOWIND_USE to the correct file in fslparms.