In 2003, NMC had made a great progress through transition into operational capabilities in numerical weather prediction.

    (1) More products of the medium-range NWP system (T213L31), which had been put into operation on September 1 of 2002, were provided as guidance in the requirements of weather forecasters during 2003, for instance, 3h-accumulated precipitation have been delivered into the forecasting platform (MICAPS) of the NMC since April 15, and the model results over Northwest Hemisphere in GRIB format have been distributed to all local weather offices of China through satellite communication system since May 10.

    (2) The new version of Limited area Assimilation and Forecasting System with horizontal resolution at 0.25° (HLAFS025), was formally put into operation on September 1 of 2003.

    (3) Real-time forecasting tests of the dust prediction model system were carried out during the whole springtime of 2003. At first, plenty of graphical outputs of the dust model were made as references for weather forecasters of the NMC, in early April of 2003; the same products were delivered to Ningxia provincial weather office.

    (4) Typhoon track prediction system, running on the homemade supercomputer SW-I, was put into quasi-operation on September 5 of 2003, and has been in the quasi-operational running stage since then.

    (5) Operational verification system for foreign NWP products was established and put into operation in the summer of 2003. The result of verification has been issued at the NMC internal web site since the end of June.

    (6) The new generation of ultraviolet index prediction system, coupling with new version of global operational model (T213L31) instead of old version (T106L19l), has been in the quasi-operational running since June of 2003 on the IBM-SP computer platform of NMC/CMA.

    (7) The resolution of forest fire potential (meteorological conditions) forecast system has been promoted to 0.5625°and the effective period of the forecast has been extended to 7days.

    (8) The plan and system program of dissymmetrical man-made typhoon model was completed. The parellel system was put into operation in early June of 2003.

    (9) The assembly plan of multi-model circulation situation forecast was designed, and the experimental forecasts of 500hpa height have been provided to weather forecasters of the NMC as one kind of references since the middle of May, 2003.

    (10) Following the upgrade of MM5 system, the meteorological interface program of the pollution forecast model and transfer system were also upgraded, which optimized the data process and transfer process of the system on DS20.

    (11) The RSMC-Beijing took part in the first WMO-CTBTO experiment on locating the nuclear-radiation pollution source, and successfully finished experiment tasks of two periods of February 3-4 and March 24-26 respectively using the Environmental Emergency Response System to the Nuclear Accidents.