WAFC Washington Performance Indicators

	850 mb	700 mb	500 mb	400 mb	300 mb	275 mb	250 mb	225 mb	200 mb	150 mb	100 mb
Northern Hemisphere	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP
Southern Hemisphere	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP
Tropics	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP
North Atlantic	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP
North Pacific	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP
Asia	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP
Australia & New Zealand	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP	Wind TEMP

Temperature and Wind

All the wind and temperature plots are for forecasts for 24 hours ahead at 00 and 12 UTC at a pressure levels of (with their approximate equivalent Flight Levels) 850 hPa (FL050), 700 hPa (FL100), 600 hPa (FL140), 500 hPa (FL180), 400 hPa (FL240), 300 hPa (FL300), 250 hPa (FL340), 200 hPa (FL390), 150hPa (FL450), 100 hPa (FL530).

The wind and temperature plots cover seven different areas. "Area 2" is a UK Met Office defined area, covering the north Atlantic and parts of western Europe and north America. We have a long time series of data for this area which shows a steadily improving performance over the years.

Most of the remaining areas are defined by the World Meteorological Organization Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) to allow comparisons to be made between different modelling centres.

A new area covering the north Pacific, as defined by ICAO, has been set up. Historical data does not exist for this new area.

In both cases, the forecasts are compared against the model's analysis for the same time. For wind, the computed errors are Root Mean Square Vector errors - this takes into account errors in the wind direction as well as the wind speed. For temperature the errors are Root Mean Square errors. The units are metres per second for wind (multiply by 1.94 to get knots) and Kelvin (or degrees Celsius) for temperature.

GRIB & BUFR Timeline

The timelines plots show the time of availability of the WAFS GRIB and BUFR data on NOAA/NWS systems. To simplify the collection and presentation of data, the availability of only one of the many bulletins that are disseminated each day is assessed. The plots show the time within which the selected bulletin was ready for transmission on 95% of occasions during each month. On the other 5% of occasions the bulletins were ready later.