Cloud evolution and Irradiance Forecasting

Results of POD, or proper orthogonal decomposition, to remove constant components of a video sequence, by simply subtracting the first principal component of the sequence. Much thanks to Nathan Kutz and his group at Univ. Washington for their awesome tutorials and materials. In this vid, the solar disk is removed to facilitate tracking and modeling of fair-weather cumuli for short-term irradiance forecasting.

This is why short-term point forecasting of irradiance in mid-latitudes is so hard to do. When and where will a cloud form?

Heat-generated buoyant velocity evolution in a simple 3d Navier-Stokes finite difference simulation.

3d Finite-Difference Navier-Stokes single cumulus cloud simulation. Attempt to converge to an observed cloud by manipulating the velocity, water vapor mixing ratio, and temperature of the model in the neighborhood of the observed cloud, for short-term irradiance forecasting. Hard to do! Credit to Mathworks, Matlab.

Time lapse, mild convective cumulus humilis, looking south, wind from WSW

Time lapse, convective cumulus humilis (fair-weather cumulus), looking south, wind from SW

Time lapse, convective cumuli, cirrus above, looking south, wind from SW

Time lapse, convective cumuli, looking south, wind from SW

Time lapse, classic summertime convective cumuli, looking south, wind from SW

Time lapse, convective cumuli, dissipating as afternoon evolves. Cirrus around 0:45 (18:16 local time), looking south, wind from NE, then W

Time lapse, rarely seen cirrus evolution, looking south, wind from NNW

Time lapse, excellent single-cloud FWC evolution, looking south, wind from S

Time lapse, fair-weather cumulus evolution, looking south, wind from SSW

Time lapse, very mild cumulus humilis, looking south, wind from S

Time lapse, OVC, clearing to cirrus later, looking south, wind from N, then NW

Time lapse, cirrus dissipation, looking south, wind from NNW

Time lapse, convective cumuli, dissipating as afternoon evolves, looking south, wind from E

Time lapse, convective cumuli becoming OVC, looking south, wind from SE, then from SW

Time lapse, OVC convective cumuli, looking south, wind from S

Time lapse, convective cumuli, looking south, wind from S

Time lapse, low convective cumuli, looking south, low-level wind from S, upper-level wind from NNW

Time lapse, convective cumuli, looking south, wind from SE

Time lapse, convective cumuli :), looking south, wind from S

Time lapse, some low-level cumuli, looking south, wind from SW

Time lapse, mostly winter CIRROcumuli, looking south, wind from W This video dedicated to Meredith Louise Miller