03 · Verification Free forecast vs INEA Macaé radar — control vs radar-cycled WRF

Three trajectories on the same grids and times. After placement (§01) and the per-window 3D-Var cycling (§02), the pipeline releases a free forecast out to 21 h driven by ndown from d01 → d02 → d03 → d04. The reflectivity truth is the INEA Macaé composite — the same radar whose volumes were assimilated (not an independent truth); rain gauges (INMET / Alerta Rio / CEMADEN) provide the independent precipitation check.

• Control — same GFS 20/12Z lineage, no radar DA (morning pair; see erratum on the afternoon pair).
• Radar-cycled — morning forecast from the 03 Z analysis after 4 hourly cycles.
• Radar truth — INEA Macaé composite reflectivity (column max), gridded with Py-ART and resampled to the WRF grid by true nearest-neighbour; the model composite uses the Stoelinga (2005) operator (rain + snow + graupel). Audit revision: in-range no-echo cells now carry −30 dBZ (symmetric with the model floor) and persistently blocked azimuth sectors stay missing.

Outputs inventory — where the truth lives on disk

1) Cycled DA (WRFDA 3D-Var analyses)

Root: containers/_instances/assimilator/fcst_cycled_2024012100/

• Morning (00–03 Z): cycle_00z/, cycle_01z/, cycle_02z/, cycle_03z/
• Afternoon (06–09 Z): cycle_06z/, cycle_07z/, cycle_08z/, cycle_09z/

Per cycle: wrfvar_output (analysis), fg (background), wrfbdy_d01, statistics, cost_fn, radar_omb_oma_01.

2) Final forecast — d01 21 h

Same root:

• free_fcst_radar/ — morning radar (03 Z → 00 Z + 1)  ready
• free_fcst_radar_afternoon/ — afternoon radar (09 Z → 06 Z + 1)  ready
• free_fcst_control_afternoon/ — afternoon control  ready
• Morning free_fcst_control does not exist as a dedicated d01 dir. For the 1:1 morning d01 control comparison, use /experiments/RADAR_DA_FCST_4DOM_2024012100/runs/real_4dom_morning/ (same GFS, no DA).

3) ndown chain — d02 / d03 / d04

Root: containers/_instances/assimilator/fcst_ndown_2024012100/

• Morning: radar/d02, radar/d03, radar/d04  ready — control/d02, control/d03, control/d04  ready.
• Afternoon: radar_afternoon/d02, radar_afternoon/d03, radar_afternoon/d04  ready — control_afternoon/d02, control_afternoon/d03, control_afternoon/d04  ready.

Each dX/ contains wrfout_d01_2024-01-21_09:00:00 .. 2024-01-22_06:00:00 (afternoon) or the 03 Z → 00 Z + 1 analogue (morning). Note: after ndown, the child was renamed to d01 in the namelist.

Further reading

• End-to-end pipeline: docs/RADAR_DA_MACAE_2024012100_PIPELINE.md in the CONVECT repo — covers grids, dates, and ndown gotchas.
• Innovation-report builder: containers/plotter/scripts/wrfda_verification/make_da_innovation_report.py