Evaluating the ability of the operational High Resolution Rapid Refresh model version 3 (HRRRv3) and version 4 (HRRRv4) to forecast wind ramp events  in the US Great Plains

Bianco, Laura; Mendeke, Reagan; Lindblom, Jakob; Djalalova, Irina V.; Turner, David D.; Wilczak, James M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-2117-2025

Articles | Volume 10, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-2117-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

NAWEA/WindTech 2024

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-10-2117-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 10

Research article

|

06 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 06 Oct 2025

Evaluating the ability of the operational High Resolution Rapid Refresh model version 3 (HRRRv3) and version 4 (HRRRv4) to forecast wind ramp events in the US Great Plains

Laura Bianco, Reagan Mendeke, Jakob Lindblom, Irina V. Djalalova, David D. Turner, and James M. Wilczak

Data sets

METARs & TAFs Aviation Weather Center https://aviationweather.gov/data/metar/

United States Wind Turbine Database V8.1 (May 22, 2025) B. D. Hoen et al. https://doi.org/10.5066/F7TX3DN0

High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) Model NOAA https://registry.opendata.aws/noaa-hrrr-pds

Model code and software

PSL Experimental Ramp Tool and Metric NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory https://psl.noaa.gov/products/ramp_tool/

Short summary

Adding more renewable energy into the electric grid is a critical part of the strategy to increase energy availability. Reliable numerical weather prediction (NWP) models need to be able to predict the intrinsic nature of weather-dependent resources such as wind ramp events, as wind energy could quickly be available in abundance or temporarily cease to exist. We assess the ability of the operational High Resolution Rapid Refresh NWP model to forecast wind ramp events in the two most recent versions.