The 104th AMS Annual Meeting will take place from January 28 to February 1, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Annual Meeting provides a forum for the community to share ideas and experiences on the research and development of Earth system models and their applications in operational forecasting. The theme for this year’s annual meeting is “Living in a Changing Environment.” AMS welcomes abstracts discussing how community models can serve as educational resources in the classroom. The Annual Meeting will take place from January 28 to February 1, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland and online.
In-Person and Remote Registration Rates
EPIC is pleased to announce that we are hosting a hands-on short course at the 104th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting. The short course topic is:
Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) Workshop: Building, Configuring, and Running the Unified Forecast System (UFS) Short-Range Weather (SRW) App in the Cloud
Saturday, January 27, 2024, from 8:30am – 12:30pm ET (Hybrid)
This short course will teach students how to configure and run NOAA’s Unified Forecast System (UFS) Short-Range Weather (SRW) Application on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform. The UFS SRW App is a numerical weather prediction framework that targets predictions of atmospheric behavior on a limited spatial domain and on time scales from less than an hour out to forty-eight hours. This workshop aims to introduce participants to configuring and running the SRW App in the cloud.
EPIC-Sponsored Short Course at AMS 2024 – Register Now at Reduced Rates!
This substantial price reduction, averaging an impressive 85% off across all categories, makes the short course more accessible than ever. Don’t miss this chance to enhance your skills and knowledge in Earth system modeling and operational forecasting.
AMS Member Late Rate: Now only $60 (Previously $375)
Non-Member Late Rate: Now just $90 (Previously $410)
AMS Student Member Late Rate: Reduced to $30 (Previously $300)
Outcome and Value
Workshop Summary for Running SRW v2.2.0 on AWS
The Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) held a successful workshop titled “Building, Configuring, and Running the Unified Forecast System Short-Range Weather App in the Cloud” at the 104th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting on January 27, 2024. The event took place both in person and virtually and drew ten participants eager to learn about the Unified Forecast System (UFS) Short-Range Weather (SRW) Application using an Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.
Led by two instructors and supported by two assistants, the workshop aimed to provide detailed training on configuring and running the UFS SRW App. Despite challenges related to internet connectivity, the EPIC team’s adaptability ensured the workshop was able to continue. This hands-on course was designed to enhance participants’ understanding and skills in cloud computing and numerical weather prediction, equipping them with the knowledge to conduct experiments using this advanced framework.
Overall, participants left the workshop with a foundation in using the UFS SRW App on AWS. This event not only showcased the EPIC team’s commitment to education but also set the stage for future training initiatives aimed at advancing skills in atmospheric prediction and cloud computing technologies.
Feedback and notes taken throughout the workshop have been reviewed to determine what worked well and where there are areas for improvement. The team will work on emphasizing the importance of clear introductions, detailed roadmaps, and step-by-step explanations to ensure participants fully grasp the process and rationale behind each action. Some suggestions for future sessions included the use of a pre-built SRW App within the containers, creation of a machine file for simplified setup, and enhanced engagement with online participants. Additionally, the workshop underscored the value of early course posting, effective promotion, and comprehensive pre-event preparations to ensure participant readiness and workshop success.
AMS 2024 Short Course Agenda
| Activity / Method | Estimated Time |
|---|---|
| Introductions | 5 minutes |
| The UFS, EPIC, and the Short-Range Weather (SRW) Application | 20 minutes |
| Log in and Run Control Case | 40 minutes |
| Break | 15 minutes |
| Modify Test Case #1 | 40 minutes |
| Modify Test Case #2 | 15 minutes |
| Break | 10 minutes |
| Compare Outputs | 20 minutes |
| Application | 40 minutes |
| Wrap-Up | 30 minutes |
Email to students beforehand will include:
– Link to join Slack channel
– Recommendation that Windows users download Winzip or Winrar to untar files and use Powershell with administrator credentials
– Agenda
(4hrs) Capacity is set to 60 total (in-person and online).
Join EPIC at the 104th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting, “Living in a Changing Environment,” scheduled to take place in Baltimore, Maryland from January 28 to February 1, 2024. This gathering, hosted by AMS, is a pivotal event for the global community engaged in the weather, water, and climate sectors.
EPIC has contributed seven insightful abstracts for the meeting, showcasing our active research and commitment to these pressing global issues. The presenters from EPIC are poised to share their knowledge and engage with the conference’s wide audience. We encourage visitors to explore the detailed abstracts and learn more about the presenters’ work outlined below. Their presentations are a testament to the collaborative spirit and intellectual vigor that the AMS Annual Meeting promotes every year.
The following EPIC team members will present at the 2024 AMS Annual Meeting:
Abstracts
EPIC Community Infrastructure Supporting Innovation of the Unified Forecast System (UFS)
by Keven Blackman
EPIC has created an infrastructure ecosystem that supports community application modeling across a myriad of supported platforms, from cloud-based high-performance computing (HPC) systems all the way down to generic MacBooks (and many more systems). This talk will highlight the importance of community infrastructure and look at advancements the program has made.
Unifying Workflows with the Strangler Fig Pattern
by Brian Weir
EPIC aims to enhance the UFS by implementing the Strangler Fig Pattern, a software architecture strategy that gradually updates legacy components, like a parasitic fig tree enveloping its host, to improve user experience while maintaining system stability and developer needs. This talk will demonstrate the pattern’s effectiveness in the Short-Range Weather Application, emphasizing a seamless transition to a modern interface while shielding users from legacy complexities.
Unified Workflow Tools and Framework: An Update
by Christina Holt
The EPIC Unified Workflow (UW) Team has been developing and implementing a set of tools and a framework for the UFS. Together, the tools and framework will ultimately unify the user experience across many applications and allow users to specify their own, unique experiments, while also building toward scientific solutions that are directly translatable to NOAA operational systems.
The UW Tools Python package includes various multipurpose generic workflow tools accessible from either the command line or a Python API. The tools will help the user accomplish tasks that range from simply filling in a template with user-defined values, to running a single UFS component, all the way to configuring an entire experiment with a complicated, flexible set of tasks and dependencies. The UW Framework refers to the way these tools will work together to give a common user experience when setting up an experiment and running it with familiar workflow managers.
In this talk, we give an overview of the progress made toward our main goals: developing the tools and framework and their first implementations in UFS applications.
EPIC Community Infrastructure and Application Tools Supporting Innovation of the Unified Forecast System
by Keven Blackman
EPIC has created an infrastructure ecosystem that supports community application modeling across a myriad of supported platforms by providing community tools that can automate processes and procedures to allow innovation to quickly move through research. This talk will focus on application tools that support innovation in the UFS.
AMS Third Symposium on Community Modeling and Innovation
by Aaron Jones
EPIC aims to speed up contributions to the UFS by actively engaging its community. EPIC provides a range of support mechanisms, including application training, CodeFests, and workshops, as well as comprehensive documentation and tutorials. EPIC aims to eliminate barriers to innovation by engaging a diverse audience including government, academia, and industry.
Code Reproducibility Practices in the UFS Weather Model and Land DA Application Development
by Zach Shrader
EPIC was launched by NOAA/WPO to accelerate the community’s development and integration of innovations into the UFS Weather Model and Land Data Assimilation (DA) System. A significant aspect of EPIC’s work is the continuous improvement and development of the UFS WM and Land DA System in regard to code reproducibility and operational readiness of the code in support of the community development.
This poster presentation summarizes operational readiness and performance testing for these UFS applications on NOAA RDHPC systems. The Operational Requirement Tests currently in use by UFS developers are of particular importance when determining the suitability of a high-powered computing platform or when examining how proposed code changes will affect the current Weather Model development repository. In addition to this, the newly developed Land DA “CTest” suite (unit tests), which uses the ERA5-Land dataset, will be examined to showcase the new tests’ use cases and benefits to the UFS community.
The code reproduction and operational testing methods discussed within this presentation are meant to educate and provide a demonstration to users of the best practices and intended uses of the UFS Weather Model Operational Requirement Tests and Land DA CTests so that community members have documented practices to assist them when preparing to test new code development and when ensuring platform readiness.
EPIC’s UFS Application Support and Updates
by Edward Snyder
EPIC currently supports and releases the Short-Range Weather (SRW) Application and Land Data Assimilation (Land DA) System, with hopes of supporting more UFS applications in the future. The EPIC Team is working with the UFS community to drive innovation for these UFS applications through documentation, platform support, infrastructure as code, advanced user support, and efforts on the release coordination cross-cutting team to help define and deliver public releases. This presentation will summarize the support that EPIC provides to the UFS community for the current UFS application suite, give an update on the newly added UFS application features, and explain how new or current users can get involved with the numerical modeling process.
Presenters
Keven Blackman
Solutions Architect
Keven Blackman has been working in computer science and meteorology for over 21 years and has been involved in weather programs across NOAA, Air Force, DOD, and industry. He has led weather programs related to Air Force support applications, numerical weather modeling, cloud architecture, and cloud data migration. Currently, Keven serves as Solutions Architect for the EPIC Program and is honored to be charged with driving community contributions to the UFS Weather Model. Keven graduated from the University of Illinois, Springfield with a master’s in computer science. He is currently completing a doctorate in information technology with a focus on blockchain and machine learning.
Brian Weir
Senior Modeling Systems Engineer
With a career spanning over a decade, Brian specializes in modernizing science-driven applications to operate on cloud platforms, customizing technical workflows, and implementing new technology. Prior to his role at Raytheon, Brian held key positions in geophysics, where he led seismic imaging projects globally, contributed to technological advancements, mentored teams, and authored numerous publications. His diverse skill set includes proficiency in Fortran, Python, and various tools and databases. Brian holds a Master of Science in Applied Physics from Miami University.
Christina Holt
Unified Workflow Product Owner
Christina graduated from Texas A&M University with a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences, and more recently from the University of Colorado with a second bachelor’s degree in computer science. She works for the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA Global Systems Laboratory. Christina has spent the last decade working with NOAA’s various numerical weather prediction systems but recently contributes mainly to software engineering tasks for the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS). Currently, Christina leads the EPIC Unified Workflow Team.
Aaron Jones
EPIC Community Engagement Team (ECE) Product Owner
Aaron is a retired Air Force veteran with over 20 years of experience in weather operations, forecasting, and analysis. During his career, he gained valuable experience through multiple deployments managing high-tempo weather operations, as well as in many diverse areas such as cybersecurity infrastructure development, network administration, and system implementation. His background provided him the experience needed to employ various project management methodologies, guide complex reorganization processes, and manage large teams. He aims to identify organizational needs and ensure that projects are delivered on time.
Apart from his military experience, Aaron received his associate’s degree in meteorology from the Air Force and a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from the American Military University and received his Master of Science in Cybersecurity in 2023. Having grown up in Spain, Aaron is bilingual and has traveled the world. He is determined to seek out challenging opportunities, fresh perspectives, and innovative thinking.
Zach Shrader
Systems Engineer II
Zach earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2015 and a Masters in Business Administration from East Carolina University in 2021. He has worked in software development for the past five and a half years, three in the financial technology industry before being hired by Raytheon Intelligence & Space as a Systems Engineer on EPIC.
Edward Snyder
Software Engineer II
Eddie graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology. He has spent nearly a decade in the private meteorology sector employed in various roles. Throughout this time, he was a business-to-business and business-to-customer support specialist, a forensic meteorologist team lead, and a meteorological developer. He helped migrate on-premises workflows to AWS and automated manually intensive jobs using Python and AWS services. Currently, he is a member of the EPIC Software Integration Team where he helps develop, support, and test the UFS Weather Model and its applications.
