Nowcasting Challenges during the Beijing Olympics: Successes, Failures, and Implications for Future Nowcasting Systems

Abstract The Beijing 2008 Forecast Demonstration Project (B08FDP) included a variety of nowcasting systems from China, Australia, Canada, and the United States. A goal of the B08FDP was to demonstrate state-of-the-art nowcasting systems within a mutual operational setting. The nowcasting systems were a mix of radar echo extrapolation methods, numerical models, techniques that blended numerical model and extrapolation methods, and systems incorporating forecaster input. This paper focuses on the skill of the nowcasting systems to forecast convective storms that threatened or affected the Summer Olympic Games held in Beijing, China. The topography surrounding Beijing provided unique challenges in that it often enhanced the degree and extent of storm initiation, growth, and dissipation, which took place over short time and space scales. The skill levels of the numerical techniques were inconsistent from hour to hour and day to day and it was speculated that without assimilation of real-time radar reflectivit...