Evaluation of the Nowcasting and very Short-Range Prediction System of the National Meteorological Service of Cuba

Abstract

The evaluation of the Nowcasting and very short-range prediction system of the National Meteorological Service of Cuba is presented. The WRF numerical weather model is the primary tool employed in the system. The assessment is done for the relative humidity, precipitation, temperature, wind, and pressure during 2019 and for the simulation domain of highest spatial resolution (3 km). The measurements of the meteorological surface stations were used in the analysis. As result, the system has good ability to forecast the aforementioned variables, and its behavior is better in the pressure and temperature fields, while the worst results were obtained for precipitation. Although there was not much difference between the four initialization (0000, 0600, 1200, and 1800 UTC), the initialization at 1200 UTC stood out among the others because, in general, it had better performance in the forecast of the variables studied.