Developing an ensemble prediction system for operational space weather forecasting

On Oct. 1, 2011, Enlil became the first operational numerical space weather prediction model to be used by the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Space Weather Prediction Center. The model is intended to provide one- to four-day advance warning of geomagnetic storms caused by quasirecurrent solar wind structures and Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs). At present, space weather forecasting uses a deterministic approach to numerical space weather prediction (NSWP)—a single forecast of CME arrival time at Earth obtained from a single set of observations of the solar corona. We plan to develop a pilot ensemble prediction system and demonstrate its potential to make improved forecasts of CME arrival time at Earth.