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The Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) is applied to operational numerical weather forecast in Galicia, northwest Spain. A 72-hour forecast at a 10-km horizontal resolution is produced dta for the region. Located on the northwest coast of Spain and influenced by the Atlantic weather systems, Galicia has a high percentage (almost 50%) of rainy days per year. For these reasons, the precipitation processes and the initialization of moisture and cloud fields are very important. Even though the ARPS model has a sophisticated data analysis system (ADAS) that includes a 3D cloud analysis package, due to operational constraint, our current forecast starts from 12-hour forecast of the NCEP AVN model. Still, procedures from the ADAS cloud analysis are being used to construct the cloud fields based on AVN data, and then applied to initialize the microphysical variables in ARPS. Comparisons of the ARPS predictions with local observations show that ARPS can predict quite well both the daily total precipitation and its spatial distribution. ARPS also shows skill in predicting heavy rains and high winds, as observed during November 2000, and especially in the prediction of the November 5th, 2000 storm that caused widespread wind and rain damage in Galicia.

Abstract. ENSURF (Ensemble SURge Forecast) is a multimodel application for sea level forecast that makes use of several storm surge or circulation models and near-real time tide gauge data in the region, with the following main goals:1. providing easy access to existing forecasts, as well as to its performance and model validation, by means of an adequate visualization tool;2. generation of better forecasts of sea level, including confidence intervals, by means of the Bayesian Model Average technique (BMA).The Bayesian Model Average technique generates an overall forecast probability density function (PDF) by making a weighted average of the individual forecasts PDF's; the weights represent the Bayesian likelihood that a model will give the correct forecast and are continuously updated based on the performance of the models during a recent training period. This implies the technique needs the availability of sea level data from tide gauges in near-real time. The system was implemented for the European Atlantic facade (IBIROOS region) and Western Mediterranean coast based on the MA-TROOS visualization tool developed by Deltares. Results of validation of the different models and BMA implementation for the main harbours are presented for these regions where this kind of activity is performed for the first time. The system is currently operational at Puertos del Estado and has proved to be useful in the detection of calibration problems in some of the circulation models, in the identification of the systematic differences between baroclinic and barotropic models for sea level forecasts and to demonstrate the feasibility of providing an overall probabilistic forecast, based on the BMA method.

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