The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2): Observational Field Campaign

Abstract

The Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)- and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-funded program, with private-sector and university partners, which aims to improve the accuracy of numerical weather prediction (NWP) model forecasts of wind speed in complex terrain for wind energy applications. A core component of WFIP2 was an 18-month field campaign that took place in the U.S. Pacific Northwest between October 2015 and March 2017. A large suite of instrumentation was deployed in a series of telescoping arrays, ranging from 500 km across to a densely instrumented 2 km × 2 km area similar in size to a high-resolution NWP model grid cell. Observations from these instruments are being used to improve our understanding of the meteorological phenomena that affect wind energy production in complex terrain and to evaluate and improve model physical parameterization schemes. We present several brief case studies using these observations to describe phenomena that are routinely difficult to forecast, including wintertime cold pools, diurnally driven gap flows, and mountain waves/wakes. Observing system and data product improvements developed during WFIP2 are also described.

Estimation of turbulence dissipation rate from Doppler wind lidars and in situ instrumentation for the Perdigão 2017 campaign

“…A different kind of lidar system or other measurement technology is necessary in these cases. Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) are increasingly used in stable ABL research (Kral et al, 2018) as well as for investigations in complex terrains (Wildmann et al, 2017). As such, they are a promising tool to validate and complement remote-sensing data in similar ways as shown in this study.…”

Impact of model improvements on 80 m wind speeds during the second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2)

“…The list of instruments, deployed in nested arrays (with the outer scale of the order of 500 km and the inner scale of the order of 2 km × 2 km, see Fig. 1a of Wilczak et al, 2019a), includes three 449 MHz and eight 915 MHz radar wind profilers with radio acoustic sounding system temperature profiles, 19 sodars, five scanning lidars, five profiling lidars, four microwave radiometers, 10 microbarographs, a network of sonic anemometers, and many surface meteorological stations. An overview of the instrumentation capability and how the instruments were used for atmospheric process understanding and model validation is presented in Wilczak et al (2019a) and Olson et al (2019a).…”

“…1a of Wilczak et al, 2019a), includes three 449 MHz and eight 915 MHz radar wind profilers with radio acoustic sounding system temperature profiles, 19 sodars, five scanning lidars, five profiling lidars, four microwave radiometers, 10 microbarographs, a network of sonic anemometers, and many surface meteorological stations. An overview of the instrumentation capability and how the instruments were used for atmospheric process understanding and model validation is presented in Wilczak et al (2019a) and Olson et al (2019a). Also, Pichugina et al (2019) compared a full year of wind profiles from Doppler lidars at three WFIP2 sites to the operational (at the time of their study) HRRR NCEP runs, showing how model errors varied from site to site and highlighting several aspects on where HRRR NCEP needed improvement.…”

“…WFIP2 (Shaw et al, 2019;Wilczak et al, 2019a; as well as the first WFIP (held in the US Great Plains, in 2011-2012; Wilczak et al, 2015) represent efforts to improve forecasts for the renewable energy sector. While the first WFIP was in an area with relatively flat terrain, WFIP2 took place in an area characterized by pronounced topographic features.…”

“…These include the Cascade Mountains and the Columbia River Basin to the east, with the Columbia River Gorge forming a gap in the mountain range resulting in complex flow patterns in the region. Important background information regarding the project can be found in several publications: Shaw et al (2019) presents a general overview of the project; Wilczak et al (2019a) describes the instruments deployed for the 18-month-long campaign and the meteorological forecast challenges of the region; and discusses the parameterization improvements applied to the HRRR and HRRRNEST models resulting from a better understanding of local atmospheric processes achieved by the use of the observations.…”