Recently, NOAA updated the global forecast weather model (GFS) to version 16. This version had numerous enhancements including an upgrade in cloud physics and an increase in the number of vertical levels of the atmosphere for which weather parameters are calculated.

Another fascinating upgrade is planned for next week.

The version 16.1 upgrade will incorporate a significant improvement in the accuracy of various three dimensional atmospheric measurements (such as humidity, temperature, pressure) that go into the “initialization” — the starting point for each GFS model run.

Incredibly, the new atmospheric data will come from the radio signal of GPS satellites!

Basically, the signal transmitted by GPS satellites will be picked up by other low orbit satellites as the GPS signal travels through the atmosphere.

The technique, known as radio occultation, detects changes in the GPS radio signal as it passes through different atmospheric thicknesses and angles. The changes in the signal reveal the physical measurements of temperatures, pressure, humidity to higher precision..

This improvement in data input is expected improve GFS model forecast accuracy.

More information about radio occultation can be found here.

I spend all too much time searching and viewing weather information sites on the Internet.

Today I stumbled upon an impressive weather web site (from our very own weather.gov) for anyone wishing to learn the basics of atmospheric science and weather forecasting.

Great for for kids.. and adults too! Hey, I learned (and re-learned) a few things!

It’s from the National Weather Service- NOAA, and it’s called “JETSTREAM” — https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/

It’s a very comprehensive, extremely well-designed site that’s structured as a comprehensive introductory course to atmospheric science, somewhere between high school and college level. I think even younger kids into science would enjoy it.

It beautifully explains and illustrates things like jet streams, vorticity, upper air charts and weather. It’s the real deal and it’s basic weather science information as it should be presented. I think it could inspire more than a few budding meteorologists. I would have loved to have had access to this as a kid.

You might want to check it out…or share this with someone.