Technical reports

HIRLAM TR70 - HARMONIE verifcation and evaluation - March 2017

Wim de Rooy and Hylke de Vries et al.

This report constitutes a summary of verification and evaluation research of the HARMONIE model. Main attention is on differences between Cy36-based HARMONIE and more recent Cy38- and Cy40-based versions but results of the HIRLAM and ECMWF model are also included. Apart from a conventional verification against synops and radiosonds, this report presents also comparisons of the models against a wide variety of observations such as: MSG retrieved radiation and cloud cover, scatterometer winds, radiosonde trajectories, radar rain data, MODE-S EHS data, and buoys. In this way, conclusions on model performance can be better founded than with standard verification. The results clearly demonstrate the overall improvement with the fully updated cy38 (which is similar to the reference cy40) against the cy36 version, most notable in the wind speed. Moreover, the updated cy38 HARMONIE version substantially outperforms the ECMWF and HIRLAM model on e.g. 10m wind speed and 2m temperature. Additional verification of precipitation using a.o. Fractions Skill Score, presented in de Vries et al. (to be submitted) is consistent with the results shown in this report.

Authors: Peter Lynch and Ray McGrath

Date: December 1990

By Bent H. Sass and Jens H. Christensen

August 1994