Evaluation of the Nowcasting and very short-range prediction system of the National Meteorological Service of Cuba

The evaluation of the Nowcasting and very short-range prediction system of the National Meteorological Service of Cuba is presented. The WRF numerical weather model is the primary tool employed in the system. The assessment is done for the relative humidity, precipitation, temperature, wind and pressure during 2019 and for the simulation domain of highest spatial resolution (3km). The measurements of the meteorological surface stations were used in the analysis. As result the system has good ability to forecast the aforementioned variables, its behavior is better in the pressure and temperature fields, while the worst results were obtained for precipitation. Although there was not much difference between the four initialization (00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 UTC), the initialization at 12:00 UTC stood out among the others because, in general, it had better performance in the forecast of the variables studied.