Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Evaluation Of The Ncep/Ncar Reanalysis In Terms Of Synoptic Scale Phenomea: A Case Study From The Midwestern Usa, Justin T. Schoof, S C. Pryor

Publications

We evaluate the ability of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)–National Center for Atmosphere Research (NCAR) reanalysis to represent the synoptic-scale climate of the Midwestern USA relative to radiosonde data. Independent, automated synoptic classifications, based on rotated principal component analysis (PCA) of 500 hPa geopotential heights, 850 hPa air temperatures, and 200 hPa wind speeds and a two-step clustering algorithm, result in a 15-type NCEP–NCAR synoptic classification and a 14-type radiosonde classification. The classifications are examined in terms of similarities and differences in the modes of variance manifest in the PCA solutions, the spatial patterns and variability of input …