Initial Condition Sensitivity and Error Growth in Forecasts of the 25 January 2000 East Coast Snowstorm

Abstract Short- and medium-range (24–96-h) forecasts of the January 2000 U.S. east coast cyclone and associated snowstorm are examined using the U.S. Navy global forecast model and adjoint system. Attention is given to errors on the synoptic scale, including forecast position and central pressure of the cyclone at the verification time of 1200 UTC 25 January 2000. There is a substantial loss of predictive skill in the 72- and 96-h forecasts, while the 24- and 48-h forecasts capture the synoptic-scale features of the cyclone development with moderate errors. Sensitivity information from the adjoint model suggests that the initial conditions for the 72-h forecast starting at 1200 UTC 22 January 2000 contained relatively small, but critical, errors in upper-air wind and temperature over a large upstream area, including part of the eastern Pacific and “well observed” areas of western and central North America. The rapid growth of these initial errors in a highly unstable flow regime (large singular-vector gro...

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