Preserving key NWSRFS Software for re-use in CHPS (models)

NEWS AND ACTIVITIES (in reverse chronological order)

July 2008

Joe Gofus assumed leadership of the OHD CHPS software development team, which grew from 2 to 11 developers within 2 months. The OHD team focuses on re-casting existing NWSRFS modeling applications ("operations") to work in a Delft-FEWS environment. A total of 44 operations have been identified as requiring conversion from NWSRFS to CHPS for the BOC, of which 15 will be addressed by OHD; the remaining operations will become available via the Delft-FEWS infrastructure, which provides most of the needed functionality already.

HSEB is currently investigating some temporary resource re-alignments to cope with some unforeseen CHPS software tasks that resulted from the most recent workshop. The goal is for OHD to deliver all migrated modeling software to Deltares in December 2008 for the BOC.

The NWSRFS models are, in most cases, ‘surgically’ removed from the NWSRFS environment in their current form to run directly from the Delft-FEWS infrastructure as an external module. The migration of nine of the 15 model operations is currently underway. The OHD team holds weekly technical conference calls with a Deltares software architect to answer in-depth questions.

HSEB is about to begin converting the NWSRFS application espadp (ensembles displays) for use in CHPS; this is a CHPS BOC requirement. HSEB will also begin preparing a modified version of ofsde to facilitate the transfer of data from the IHFS database to the CHPS database for the BOC.

Sudha Rangan will be leaving the NWS on Monday July 7 before traveling home to her native India. Sudha originally led the way for OHD’s software development activities on the "FEWS for CHPS Pilot" project, where she successfully demonstrated how the new software and architectural concepts would work; she has subsequently shared her best practices by teaching the growing HSEB/CHPS team how to build software in the Delft-FEWS environment. Lee Cajina will be assuming team leadership. OHD owes a huge debt of gratitude to Sudha for her technical leadership during the critical decision making activities.

May 2008

A list of NWSRFS baseline "operations" in use at RFCs can be found here (other NWSRFS operations exist, but are not used for forecasting)

Operations being adapted by OHD for use in CHPS:

• UNIT-HG
• CONS_USE
• SSARRESV
• SSARROUTE
• RES-SNGL
• LAG/K
• SNOW-17
• SAC-SMA with FGIX (original frozen ground)
• TATUM
• CHANLOSS
• RSNWELEV
• RES-J
• BASEFLOW
• MUSKROUT
• LAY-COEF

As of May 2008, NWSRFS pre-processors, time series operations, and other functional capabilities are still undergoing analysis to determine the level of effort required.

The NWS will begin an analysis of Calibration, Verification, and Ensembles needs later this year (2008).

Run-time "MODs " – enhancements to the FEWS framework are currently underway by Deltares; work related to model-specific MODs is on hold until the FEWS framework enhancements are made available to OHD.

Science-into-operations projects:

• SAC-HT (on hold temporarily until resources become available)

[Back to main CHPS web page]