COSMO model at HNMS

Last updated: May 2019

Contents

1. Basic model set-up
2. Computer System
3. Operational schedule
4. Detailed Configuration

1. Basic model set-up

The national meteorological service of Greece, HNMS in Athens, operates the COSMO model in operational mode at ~4 km grid spacing. The rotated domain has it's (0,0) point at normal-long: 24^o, normal-lat: 38^o. In the rotated coordinates, it's top left point is at rot-long: -25.25^o, rot-lat: 13.25^o. The covered area has a longitude-range of 45^o and a latitude-range of 24.5^o, with 80 vertical levels

Initial conditions come from ECMWF's IFS model, over the area around the COSMO domain (outer red boundary). The hourly COSMO output is used to run a high resolution version over Greece (inner red boundary)

Fig 1: The COSMO domains (red boundaries) used at HNMS and the IFS area for BCs

The following table gives a brief overview of the main features of the "primary" normal-resolution model set-up for the HNMS daily runs

2. Computer System

The COSMO model is run at ECMWF's Cray XC30 system ever since it was installed and member states were allowed access (2014). During a run, 35 nodes are used for COSMO integration and 2 nodes for INT2LM. With this setup and our current configuration, each 72h forecast is completed in about an hour. The high-resolution version runs for 48 hours, using 56 nodes

3. Operational schedule

HNMS runs COSMO model using 3hrs boundary conditions from ECMWF (of 0.10 deg resolution), for a foracast range of 72hrs, twice a day (00h and 12h analysis). Each cycle starts when half the ECMWF files are available (through ECMWF's local dissemination). The high-resolution run starts when half the normal-resolution files have been produced. The output directories of COSMO model are monitored during the run time and the produced files are sent to HNMS (via ftp) for post processing, as they appear. Currently, postproccessing mostly involves graphics-generation for immediate use.

4. Detailed Configuration