Capt Stephen J. Horsman

1
Experiment for this thesis was performed at Naval
Postgraduate School, CA 3-18 May 07.
AN ASSESMENT OF THE WORLD WIDE MERGED CLOUD
ANALYSIS USING INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS
Satellite indicates clouds over Texas and Ohio
Valley Goes East IR Satellite Image provided by
NOAA showing the continental United States for 17
May 2007 at 1615Z. (From NOAA, 2007)
Capt Stephen J. Horsman Advisor Lt Col Karl D.
Pfeiffer (NPS) Sponsor AFWA Beneficiary
Forecasters and ground/flying assets that need
accurate cloud forecasts

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
• There is no current verification method of the
  World Wide Merge Cloud Analysis (WWMCA), which
  resolves the spatial resolution differences
  between it and real-time surface observations.
• Develop a verification method to compare the
  cloud model to the observed synoptic observations
  from 10 different bases across the continental
  United States.

Cloud over Texas and Ohio Valley using Gribs data
from AFWA Map created by MapServer with WWMCA
data creating clouds over the continental United
States for 17 May 2007

• RESULTS
• Overall WWMCA did not verify well against
  real-time surface weather observations. There
  was a total of 32 non-verification rate
  recorded.
• Nellis and Travis AFB verified the best out of
  the other eight Air Force bases examined. This
  was expected since the these two bases are
  located regions where the weather is usually
  benign.