06z/18z model runs

[Ingyball]

@StLweatherjunkie We can start our discussion in this new thread. This is a reply to your previous post.

No, those trends started inside 3 days and as I mentioned I suspected to be due to the influence of airforce Recon, which is where the off hour runs really get to shine.

That article I linked was from 2015 and all the data was 2014 and earlier and the error in the off hour runs were already minimal and we've only improved since then. On top of that they said themselves that the 06z/18z scored higher in skill than the 00z/12z cycles before them, especially in the short to mid-term. Their drop in skill was compared to following runs, which makes sense with new data coming in.

I believe this is a great example in confirmation bias because when the off hour runs stay within consensus the majority of the time it's just not noticed until a wacky run happens. That said, yesterday's 18z run was well within the ensembles spread. There had been more than a few ensembles that showed that solution across all the global ensembles.

 

[Ingyball]

As for pulling resources going out of the 06z/18z runs, I don't think they use up enough resources to where reallocating that would support a new program. The data it assimilates will be collected anyways, and if we're still running off hours of the NCEP suite, you might as well run the GFS as well. And, as I mentioned before, when we're able to get Recon data into these off hour runs, their data becomes invaluable. That's an extra 6 hours of lead time for NHC if a plane finds something significantly different than expected, but the data was too late to incorporate into 12z or 00z. 

 

 

 

That said, we can always use more funding to improve gaps and start new projects. I just don't think getting rid of the 06z/18z GFS gives you much money in return at all. Maybe if we got rid of the whole NCEP suite for those hours but that would be serious drop in good information, especially on the HRRR. Capping the GFS to 90 hours isn't going to save you much either.

[bigben89]

2023 - The winter that never came.