The Operational Mesogamma-Scale Analysis and Forecast System of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command. Part III: Forecasting with Secondary-Applications Models

Output from the Army Test and Evaluation Command’s Four-Dimensional Weather System’s mesoscale model is used to drive secondary-applications models to produce forecasts of quantities of importance for daily decision making at U.S. Army test ranges. Examples of three specific applications—a sound propagation model, a missile trajectory model, and a transport and diffusion model—are given, along with accuracy assessments using cases in which observational data are available for verification. Ensembles of application model forecasts are used to derive probabilities of exceedance of quantities that can be used to help range test directors to make test go–no-go decisions. The ensembles can be based on multiple meteorological forecast runs or on spatial ensembles derived from different soundings extracted from a single meteorological forecast. In most cases, the accuracies of the secondary-application forecasts are sufficient to meet operational needs at the test ranges.