The ultimate goal of this research is to understand and develop methods to better forecast large-scale, extended range forecasts on time scales of 10 to 30 days. A number of factors contribute to the variability of the skill of extended range forecasts such as the quality of the information available to describe the initial state of the atmosphere at the start of the forecast, model deficiencies, and the dynamical instabilities of the atmosphere. The Principal Investigator will explore the predictability of the atmosphere by: (1) diagnosing existing data sets of extended range forecasts carried out with the National Meteorological Center's (NMC) operational forecast model and (2) conducting experiments with simplified versions of the NMC global model to determine to what extent particular regions or weather regimes determine subsequent atmospheric predictability.
