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These results are experimental and are not part of the Bureau of Meteorology's operational products and services.

RAINVAL is a graphical user interface for verifying daily quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) from numerical weather prediction models against operational daily rainfall analyses.

The user can select the model, date, region, and forecast period and perform QPF verifications locally, or access verification results that have been produced by NMC (Note: NMC is not yet doing the QPF verification operationally). The main verification product is a pair of maps of the forecast and analyzed (observed) rainfall, a contingency table for rain/no rain, and a table of verification statistics.

RAINVAL includes tools for zooming, data picking, producing difference plots, displaying multiple QPFs (including animation), time series, and comparative statistics.

Main Window

The items in the main window control the choice of which model, forecast period, region, date(s) to verify, as well as how the verification should be performed and how the output should be stored.

RAINVAL verifies the following forecast models:

       LAPS              0.375 degrees latitude/longitude
       mesoLAPS          0.125 degrees latitude/longitude
       TLAPS             0.375 degrees latitude/longitude
       GASP              0.75  degrees latitude/longitude
       USAVM             1.25  degrees latitude/longitude
       UKGC              1.25  degrees latitude/longitude
       JMA               2.50  degrees latitude/longitude
       Persistence       0.25  degrees latitude/longitude

for the following forecast periods:

       00-24, 12-36, 24-48, and 48-72 (hours)

QPFs can be verified for the following regions:

       AUST, SE, SW, and USER_DEFINED

The user can choose to save output in B&W or colour postscript files, GIF files, statistics files (time series of several verification statistics), and/or cities files (time series for 12 Australian cities).

RAINVAL normally verifies the individual daily QPF(s) for the specified model, forecast period, region, and dates. The verification is performed by first remapping the analysis data from its 0.25 degree latitude/longitude resolution to the spatial resolution of the model. The model QPFs are verified against the remapped analysis values on a gridpoint by gridpoint basis.

The user can choose to verify a sum of the QPFS against the sum of the corresponding rainfall analyses. This is useful for monthly QPF verification.

S/he can also verify the forecasts from a single model run by selecting "1 Model Run". For example, if the GASP model was selected and the start and end dates were 19970901 and 19970903, respectively, RAINVAL would verify GASP 00_24 on 19970901, GASP 24_48 on 19970902, and GASP 48_72 on 19970903.

Contiguous Rain Areas (CRAs) representing weather systems can be selected automatically or manually and verified individually.

A RAINVAL Glossary defines the various QPF and verification terminology used in RAINVAL.

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