Open AccessDetecting and nowcasting cloudiness using near‐surface temperatures on winter nights
Author(s) -
Grimbacher Tobias,
Schmid Willi
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
meteorological applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1469-8080
pISSN - 1350-4827
DOI - 10.1017/s1350482706002167
Subject(s) - nowcasting , environmental science , cloud cover , precipitation , frost (temperature) , meteorology , air temperature , interpolation (computer graphics) , atmospheric sciences , range (aeronautics) , climatology , cloud computing , geology , computer science , geography , materials science , animation , computer graphics (images) , composite material , operating system
A model to deduce cloudiness from automatic measurements of synoptic and road weather stations during winter nights is introduced. The (height‐adjusted) cloud amount of each station can be determined from near‐surface temperature measurements and precipitation information only. By using the difference between the air temperature at surface level and the air temperature 2 m above ground, a correlation coefficient is achieved of up to 0.91 between the calculated cloud amount and observations. The model is applied to a dense network in central Switzerland in order to obtain a two‐dimensional cloud map by interpolation. With the help of a tracking algorithm, the displacement of cloud patterns is nowcasted. The procedure was tested using data from winter 2003–4. It works successfully with a forecast range up to about 90 minutes. The results are used to predict a change in surface temperature (in cases with changing cloudiness), and thus allow nowcasting of slippery roads or ground frost. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Society.