Surface Weather Analysis at the National Meteorological Center: Current Procedures and Future Plans

Abstract

The preparation of surface weather analyses at the National Meteorological Center (NMC) is currently under review. The availability of advanced graphics workstations and consideration of revisions to conceptual models of cyclogenesis and frontal analysis present challenges and opportunities for improving surface analysis at NMC. In this paper, current procedures and surface analysis products are reviewed. The adaptation of workstation technology to one surface weather analysis product, the Daily Weather Maps, Weekly Series, is described and presented as a preliminary experiment for assessing the utility of performing surface analyses on interactive workstations. Finally, issues that will impact the future of surface analysis at NMC, such as workstation development, utilization of gridded datasets and their manipulation for improving objective analyses, possible revisions to frontal symbology, incorporation of mesoscale symbology, and changes to sea-level pressure computations, are discussed.