For some of us weather folk, Tuesday, March 3rd will be a sad day. One of our commrades will be retired... The Nested Grid Model or NGM as we call it. This model was developed and used in the late 80s through the 90s. It was run twice a day and gave forecasts out to 48 hours.
When I entered college in 1993 the NGM was THE model. It actually took the place of another model called the Limited Fine Mesh or LFM. The NGM was a very nice improvement over the LFM.
During the 90s two new models were also developed and used. The ETA and the AVN. The AVN model was instrumental to forecasting the March 1993 Superstorm. Both models became the forerunners to our current model suite of the North American Mesocale Model, or NAM, and Global Forecast System or GFS.
All of these changes have brought about better forecasts over the last 20 years. As computers become faster, we can put more information into the models and hopefully produce a better forecast. The next 20 years will be fun to watch!
For now, we say good-bye to the NGM. Sniffle... Sniffle...
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