The FIM Global Model

image not available
2-m Temperature

image not available
Precipitable Water/500hPa Height

image not available
250hPa Wind

image not available
Total 5-day Accumulated Precip

A unique combination of 3 numerical design features

  • Icosahedral horizontal grid, mostly hexagons except for 12 pentagons ("I" in FIM)
  • Isentropic-sigma hybrid vertical coordinate, adaptive, concentrates around frontal zones, tropopause, similar to RUC model ("F" for Flow-following in FIM)
  • Finite-volume horizontal transport (Also under "F", for "finite-volume" in FIM)

News Items
  • Nov 2016 - FIM moving toward FV3 -- FV3 coordination and development started with NCEP and GFDL and ESRL/PSD. Some limited FIM experiments with physics and coupled modeling (Week 3-4) will continue as an interim model while initial development on FV3 starts.
  • Oct 2016 - 30km FIM experiments continue with alternative cumulus parameterizations comparisons. FIM-30km uses the GFS physics suite including its simplified-Arakawa-Schubert scheme. By contrast, FIMX-alt-30km uses the Grell-Freitas instead of the SAS scheme with the rest of the GFS physics suite otherwise. Similar tests with Grell-Freitas convection will also be carried out with FV3 in future experiments toward NGGPS development. FIM-15km uses the GFS physics suite, but with use of MODIS land-use data instead of USGS.
  • FIM model paper - Mon. Wea. Rev. June 2015, 2386-2403.
  • July 2015 - FIM running with GFS-2015 physics (slightly more accurate, FIM8/FIM9) and GFS-2012 physics (FIM8zeus/FIM9zeus). FIM8 also running with latest Grell-Freitas convective scheme (FIMXzeus, using GFS-2015 physics otherwise). HIWPP data availability continues as started in Feb 2015.
  • Feb 2015 - Open data availability with 1/8 deg hourly FIM-15km (FIM9) experimental data through NOAA HIWPP program, and specifically, the HIWPP Open Data Initiative.
  • Jan 2015 - FIM model update: refined icosahedral grid with more uniform size, hourly 1/8 degree output, refined snow/rain output, snow accumulation output, versions now running with 2011-GFS physics suite and 2015-GFS-T1534.
  • 11 April 2014 - Update:
    A revised spring-2014 version of the FIM, with improvements primarily in numerics, is ready for application to the 2014 hurricane season. The 15km version of this updated FIM global model will provide experimental forecast guidance to the National Hurricane Center for the 2014 season, as funded under the NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project. Key improvements for 2014 are incorporation of a high-resolution MODIS land-use data-set, which refines for land-water contrast and land-use down to 15km or 10km resolution, a refined icosahedral grid (more regular polygons), improved momentum interpolation to polygon sides, and improved vertical regridding.
  • March 2014 - Update:
    FIM9 (15km, on jet) graphical products are now being produced over North America at a 13km resolution for the US subregions (e.g.,NW, SW, NC, SC, NE, SE, Great Lakes) also available for the Rapid Refresh..
  • January 2014 - Update:
    An evaluation of the 2013 version of the FIM is available in this document.