# Presentation: 398645

## Recollections on 36 years of Federal ServicePunch Cards to VPNCamille to Katrina

- Bob Kistler
- Aug 30, 2005

## John Derber slide 

- _[Baseball World Series past winners, losers and scores ](http://www.pubquizhelp.34sp.com/sport/baseball.html)_

## Early Formative Dates

- Dec 27,1947  - 1st birthday – NYC record Blizzard
- Nov 25,1950 – Great Appalachian Storm
- rhymes with Norm... another first hand experience
- Oct – Nov 1957 – Sputnik
- Aug 14,1958 – cross town move...
- Biked a mile to school for 2 years– became a weather consumer
- Dec 9-10, 1960
- Giant – Redskins game played on top of the tarp in Griffith Stadium
- Jan 20, 1961  Kennedy Inauguration Snow
- Jan 1964 Dumont HS
- 2 school day vacation
- Mrs. Girard - Physics?  not exactly ...
- PSU, Rutgers, NYU meteorology programs
- PSU had most courses...

## Penn State

- Sep, 1964   - Dec , 1967
- Nelson Seaman and I were classmates, and shared an apartment Spring 1968 (MLK,RFK)
- Nelson departed for the Navy , while I went to the Air Force
- First met John Hovermale in Fall 1967
- Teaching asst to Carl Kreitzberg, John Cahir
- 	Joel Myers (President of Accuweather)
- Taught Intro to Meteo lab (ask Jim Laver!)

**Notes:**
Livezey was on of the few students to beat Joel in Forecast class in Spring 68 – I 

## USAF – 1st  Assignments

- Medina Annex, Lackland AFB
- Oct 1, 1968 - Dec 20 ,1968
- Perrin AFB, Sherman TX
- Jan 5, 1969 – Sep 1970
- 18 mo 2nd Lt – very rare!
- Ramey AFB, PR Oct 1970 – June 1972
- Hurricane Edith (Cat 5 in Caribbean)
- Discharged Jun 7, 1972 (Agnes, Watergate!)

**Notes:**
Was a 18mo 2nd looey - 

## Perrin AFB Forecasting along the Red River

- Blue Northerner’s
- 86F sw @ 45 kt
- to 34F n @ 35 kt overnight
- Severe Weather
- Too numerous to mention all – (80 year Texas farmer...)
- 1800L 250mi sfc anl – 4 separate OK  tornados observed
- South Kansas CB’s
- Stratus
- From the south or from the north – no sat pix!
- Fog – one time we had, cleared at dusk after rain.
- Cross winds
- Colorado lows produce rare strong west winds
- Fog

## Cat 5 Camille

- Hurricane Camille Aug 16-17, 1969
- Keesler AFB, Mobile AL
- Perrin served as evacuation site
- Incredulous pilots – disbelief of dire prediction
- Keesler used radio to call obs throughout
- Afterwards – a call for Reccon expansion
- My DetCo, Ken Kaiser, (went to Utah (St?)  with Des!) encouraged me to volunteer.

## USAF 2nd Assignment

- 53rd Weather Recon Sq
- Ramey AFB PR
- Oct 15, ‘70 – Jun 4, ’72
- Winter Storms (!)
- Germany – Ice Fogs
- Routine Tracks/Calibration
- Tropical Storms
- Research / special ops
- Dropwindsondes
- Apollo missions
- Missile launches
- Talked Camille ARWO’s  NHC skeptical of readings

## Hurricane Edith 1971

- 4 Penetrations
- Sep 8
- Watched winds > 100kt
- Cat 5 Hurricane
- 18 GMT 9/ 9/71
-      14.8N 83.2W
-      160kt  943mb

## Memorable sightings fromthe air

- Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Lesser Antilles
- San Juan Raob
- NYC at night after takeoff from Dover DE
- Havana at night, Radio contact with Cubans Nov 1971
- Northern Lights over Newfoundland
- Ship Hotel in a full gale
- Lightning at night
- Lands End
- Tip of Mississippi Delta
- Pico Cristobal Colon (18950 ft Northern Columbia)
- Apollo 15 launch (from Cocoa Beach)
- $%#@&*^  camera malfunction

## PSU, part II

- Jun ’72 – Jun ‘73
- Perrin Tornado film (1959 1965 ?)
- East coast storm missions
- IBM Mainframe Computer technology
- Punch cards and paper output
- Transitioned to interactive terminal
- John Hovermale
- Introduced me to the concept of data assimilation
- We worked out a simple “nudging” system
- Jim Hoke and Rick Anthes expanded and published
- Haltiner and Williams II, Kalnay have kindly referenced
- Decided to enter work force rather than pursue academic life via a higher degree
- Applied for jobs with NCAR and NMC

## NMCData Assimilation Branch

- Started Jul 9, 1973 in FOB 4
- Fred Shuman, NMC Director
- John Brown, Chief of Development Division
- Bill Bonner, Branch Chief
- Ron McPherson, Section head
- Goal: Build a global assimilation system for FGGE (1978-1979)
- Use John Stackpole’s grid point 9L PE model
- Build a GDAS based on an OI analysis, Hough analysis as a fallback
- IBM 360/195 renovation to replace the  CDC 6600
- CDC 7600 eventually matched the IBM benchmark years later
- First Holiday party, 1973 AAFB (snowed out!)
- Ken Bergman, Doris Gordon, Ron and myself
- Later added Glenn Rasch and Dave Parrish (AD) to work on the Hough Analysis, Steve Tracton to do diagnostics

**Notes:**
Practice parties, A Brown John, The Freddie, 

## First results

- 1975 – Barotropic model, Cressman Anl,
- Crude 4D “back and forth” insertion of VTPR with geostrophic wind adjustment
- 1978 6hr cycle
- Optimum Interpolation(v1.0) thermal wind relation in the “final” analysis with 9L 2.5x2.5 gp model
- Dey Initialization

## GDAS v2.0Spectral Model

- 1978 – missed a procurement cycle
- (IBM 370 – Cray 1 – we have never caught up!)
- Silent 700! Could work from Home!
- 1980 – Joe Sela R30L12 global spectral model
- Joe and Brad Ballish – Machenauer Non-linear normal mode initialization
- 1981 Dave, Doris and I upgraded to GDAS v 2.0 O/I on Kurihara type grid , spectral model, NLNMI in final analysis
- 1983 – Cyber 205 – 10 years after the 360/195
- HDS – NCAR graphics

**Notes:**
Waited 3 weeks for a job that was cancelled immediately after it started.
Geoff Dimego recoded the oi to fit in 256 so we could run tests on TSO!

## Global Model - DERF

- Added 3d diagnostics coupled with Kanamitsu’s graphics
- Dynamic Extended Range Forecasts
- 14 Dec ’86 – 20 Mar ’87
- 30 day forecasts

## Reanalysis 

- Approached by Eugenia in 1990 with the idea
- Asked to formulate computational, storage requirements
- Semi-seriously, I did.  First realized we had to do a month of Reanl. per day wallclock to get finished in usable time
- Asked for 1⁄2 a Cray X-MP
- Robotic silo
- Expected neither!

## Reanalysis, cont

- To my great surprise, we got the resources!
- Had to take it seriously – and got great help!
- Grib and Bufr – Jack Woollen builds Bufrlib
- Brian Doty agrees to marry Grads and GRIB
- Partnership with NCAR, Roy Jenne
- They will prepare bulk of input observations
- They will receive a copy of grids to distribute
- Eugenia’s stroke of genius: CD-ROMS
- – Wesley’s, Glenn made it reality
- Yearly CD-roms
- Summary CD-roms

## Reanalysis, cont.

- Confidence mantra...
- if we can do a 6hr cycle, we can do a day
- If we can do a day, we can do a month
- If we can do a month, we can do a year
- If we can do a year, we can do 50!
- Key was rigorous date checking
- Uniquely date stamp each file
- QC internal dates vs. external file date before either assimilation or archiving

## Reanalysis, continue

- My rhetorical ?
- What is “good” enough?
- Answered for myself, and...
- I Relaxed once forecasts scores  proved to be  competitive

## Reanalysis, cont

- Problems, Problems, Problems
- Bulk of my time was spent building infrastructure scripts and an archival system from scratch
- By the time I could review “building blocks, transitions, etc”, I would find problems “after the fact” – we could pride ourselves in our openness and honesty.
- So be it – the price for doing it first...
- As Mark Cane said, every will complain, and continue to use it...

## CDAS

- Reanalysis came about to give long record for a Climate Data Assimilation System –
- Attempt to mitigate the false climate signals created by quantum “progress” in the GDAS
- CDAS is in its 11th year (1995-2005) – real time run of Reanalysis and has been managed by Wesley E. since 2000.
- Daily CDAS forecasts serve as the EMC benchmark for GFS improvement...

## What Louis U. calls the “Kistler” slide

## GFS – CDAS 

## Kocin and Uccellini, 2004

- Feb 2003, I “reanalysed” the 1978 Boston Blizzard for its 25th Anniversary with the T254L64 GDAS
- Louis had seen results from ERA-40
- How could Paul and he update their monograph of East Coast Snowstorms with more detail than NCEP/NCAR T62L28?
- Phillips and Sanders Symposiums
- Seattle Jan 2004
- Nov 1950, Dec 26-27, 1947
- Mike Baker was hired to do the 70 historical east coast storms for the updated monograph
- I worked on the reruns of the 1947 and 1950 storms
- Prototype, “ERA-40” comparable, “reanalysis” system
- assimilated historical radiances

## Norm Phillips

- Summer of 1973 in a NESDIS seminar room John Brown introduce Norm as the incoming Principle Scientist – I remember raucous, loud cheering and applause.
- We have Norm to thank for
- his wisdom and prestige (Just ask Milt Halem!)
- the NGM
- sack lunch seminars (sardines)
- the end of neckties!
- Afternoon seminars on the practical application and predicted outcome  of momentum transfer, wind velocity variations, and spin characteristics on the flight of  irregularly shaped spheroids in the boundary layer over variable land surfaces and bodies of water  (usually at Robin Dale CC)

## -

**Surface Analyses**

**2003 NCEP GFS Forecasts valid 15Z 25 Nov 1950**** **

**Pittsburgh PA**

**Long Island NY**

## Slide 27

## More from Kocin and Uccellini

## Slide 29

## Improvement from T254L64

**T254L64**

## Dec 26-27,1947  

- NYC record 24 hr total snowfall
- Much to my regret, obs were _***not***_  available for the period to be included in Reanalysis
- Continued work by Tom Karl’s people at NCDC and Roy Jenne at  NCAR, a minimal set of digital obs were received for Dec 1947
- I concocted land sfc, snow/ice, sst and a Dec atmospheric climo circulation (ala Reanl)
-  began an assimilation on Dec 15
-  started running fcst’s on Dec 21
- Told Louis I doubted we had enough data...

## Obs 15Z 12/25

- Obs 15Z 12/25

## NYC record  24hr snowfall

## Storm precip15z Dec 25 fcst

**Storm precip****15z Dec 25 fcst**

## Not your classic Nor’easter

## Full Circles

- Dec 27 1947 revisited
- Nov 1950 revisited
- Camille to Katrina
- Where did I discharge from the USAF ?
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Where are we relocating , Aiken SC!
- DAB to JCDA
- While I’m retiring from the Civil Service
- At my request...
- and Steve Lord’s and John Derber’s agreement to have me...
- like Pete Caplan and Bob Tuleya....
- I’m coming back as a telecommuting contractor to work in...
- Data Assimilation once again!

## Two last stories...

- Silent 700 – 1978 move to Reston
- Joy of my daughter, comment of my wife
- Future Good News, Bad News

## Good News

- At some time in the future will come the following press announcement...
*GFS 5 day AC scores reaches avg of 0.99 !*
*Followed by ...*

## GFS trails ECMWF by 0.8 points

Thanks you putting up with me today ...and for 3 decades!

- Thanks you putting up with me today ...and for 3 decades!

- Bad News...