Verification of Mesoscale NWP Forecasts of Abrupt Cold Frontal Wind Changes

During a wildfire, a sharp wind change can lead to an abrupt increase in fire activity and change the rate of spread, endangering firefighters working on what had been the flank of the fire. In southeastern Australia, routine forecast of cold-frontal wind change arrival times is a critical component of the fire weather forecasting service, and mesoscale NWP model predictions are integral to this forecast process. An event-based verification method has been developed in order to verify these mesoscale NWP model forecasts of wind changes. The approach is based on fuzzy-rule techniques and objectively determines the timing of significant (fire weather) wind changes from time series of observations at a single surface station. In this paper these rules are applied to observational and NWP model forecast time series at observation locations over five fire seasons to determine objective “observed wind change times” and “forecast wind change times” for significant frontal wind changes in southeastern Australia. These forecast wind change times are compared with those observed, and also with those determined subjectively by forecasters at the Victorian Regional Forecast Centre. This provides an objective verification of NWP wind change forecasts and a measure of contemporary NWP model skill against which future model improvements may be measured. Case studies of two wind change events at selected stations are also presented to demonstrate some of the strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of this verification technique.