| **These plots show the performance of WAFC Washington forecasts produced by EMC/NCEP in the United States.
Temperature and Wind
All the wind and temperature plots are for forecasts for 24 hours ahead at 00 and 12 UTC at a pressure levels of
(with their approximate equivalent Flight Levels) 850 hPa (FL050), 700 hPa (FL100), 600 hPa (FL140), 500 hPa (FL180),
400 hPa (FL240), 300 hPa (FL300), 250 hPa (FL340), 200 hPa (FL390), 150hPa (FL450), 100 hPa (FL530).
The wind and temperature plots cover seven different areas. "Area 2" is a UK Met Office defined area, covering
the north Atlantic and parts of western Europe and north America.
Most of the remaining areas are defined by the World Meteorological Organization Commission for Basic Systems (CBS)
to allow comparisons to be made between different modelling centres.
In both cases, the forecasts are compared against the model's analysis for the same time. For wind, the computed errors
are Root Mean Square Vector errors - this takes into account errors in the wind direction as well as the wind speed.
For temperature the errors are Root Mean Square errors. The units are metres per second for wind
(multiply by 1.94 to get knots) and Kelvin (or degrees Celsius) for temperature.
GRIB & BUFR Timeline
The timelines plots show the time of availability of the WAFS GRIB and BUFR data on NOAA/NWS systems. To simplify
the collection and presentation of data, the availability of only one of the many bulletins that are disseminated
each day is assessed. The plots show the time within which the selected bulletin was ready for transmission on
95% of occasions during each month. On the other 5% of occasions the bulletins were ready later.
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