MoreCast: GDPS replacing RDPS: ETA June 2024 [ TIMEBOX = 1 DAY ]

[NicolasLivanos]

Dear MSC open data users,

As announced earlier this month, at the next innovation cycle, in May/June 2024, the Regional Deterministic Prediction System (RDPS) will be replaced by a component of the Global Deterministic Prediction System (GDPS) over a new North American domain. This component will be available on a rotated lat-lon grid of 10km resolution, slightly shifted to the east in relation to the current grid.

Since the Regional Deterministic Precipitation Analysis (RDPA) is directly dependent on the RDPS, this update will involve replacing the current RDPA lat-lon rotated grid with this new grid, slightly shifted to the east, covering the Caribbean, the whole of Mexico and part of Northern Europe:

A sample of the new data is available here (final files only):

https://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/cmos/sample_rdpa/

Please note that no other changes will be made to this data, only the grid will change.

To enable our users to gradually adjust their applications, RDPA data on this new domain will be available, starting from March 2024 (exact date to come) on DD-Alpha, the MSC Datamart test web server. Data will be available in parallel with current data on the MSC Datamart, for a period of around 3 months, until May/June 2024. Further details will be communicated in the next weeks.

Documentation will be adjusted accordingly.

[NicolasLivanos]

To enable our users to adjust their applications, RDPA data on this new domain is now available on DD-Alpha, the MSC Datamart test web server in parallel with current data on the MSC Datamart.

[brettedw]

I believe some of these changes have already been put in place. From January:

Initially (May/June 2024), the data will remain available on the current polar stereographic grid, with the only change being the removal of the "no-data" mask in the northeast corner of the grid, since the data will be generated with a new version of the system which provides greater areal coverage. A sample data set is available at this address:

The current RDPS data already seems to have removed that no-data mask, though their documentation still references it.

At a later date, and within a timeframe yet to be determined, this polar stereographic grid will be replaced by the expanded rotated lat-lon grid (blue grid in the graph) to integrate the entire Caribbean and Mexico, as well as part of Northern Europe. At the same time, we will be standardizing the nomenclature of the files available on the MSC Datamart according to our new conventions.

This has yet to happen and I don't see any bulletins about it released since January, so we can probably put this on the back burner for now. I've reached out to ECCC for some clarification

[brettedw]

From ECCC via email:

I confirm the RDPS is replaced by a component of the GDPS, I mean we will still provide data on a regional domain. In the first step and to avoid major impact on users, we will generate the data on the same grid but in next months we will provide data a rotated lat-lon grid closer to native data and we will take the opportunity to update the files nomenclature at that time. Of course, they will be a transition period when both datasets will be available at the same time and then after a 6-month period (to be confirmed), legacy data on polar stereographic will be removed from the open data offering. A technical note with all the details will be available on June 11th 2024.

[brettedw]

Update as of 2024-09-26

We don’t have identified any date currently. Once data is available on the MSC Datamart, on the rotated lat-lon grid with the new nomenclature, there will be a period of at least 3 or 6 months before the PS grid is removed.