AMPS: Real-Time Antarctic Mesoscale Weather Forecasts

Antarctic weather forecasts are generated twice daily by the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS). The system runs the Polar MM5 model on nested grids at 90-km, 30-km, 10-km, and 3.3-km resolutions, tailored for operations at McMurdo Station. It is operated by NCAR MMM and supported by the National Science Foundation in collaboration with the Byrd Polar Research Center.

Use Cases

• Supporting flight safety decisions in Antarctica based on real-time mesoscale weather forecasts.
• Studying polar atmospheric processes based on the Polar MM5 model's specialized modifications.
• Analyzing forecast animations for weather pattern visualization, though file sizes may be large.
• Comparing model outputs across different spatial resolutions (3.3-km to 90-km grids).

Strengths

• Forecasts are produced twice daily, providing frequent updates.
• Model employs nested grids at four specific resolutions: 90-km, 30-km, 10-km, and 3.3-km.
• The Polar MM5 version contains modifications specifically for polar troposphere processes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NCAR MMM (National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division), Byrd Polar Research Center (Ohio State University).

Collection Method

Numerical weather prediction using the Polar MM5 model (version V3.4) run on a 32-processor Compaq ES40 cluster.

Time Range

Real-time, with 5-day global forecast coverage also mentioned.

Freshness

Forecasts are produced twice daily.

Geography

Antarctica, specifically tailored for McMurdo Station.