Hybrid modeling in meteorological applications: Anatomy of a $ 200 millionfreeze

Unbeknownst to many fruit and vegetable producers a killer frost sneaked do wn the Florida peninsula during the night of January 18 to 19, 1997. Accord ing to news reports it left in its wake approximately $ 200 million in dama ge to crops and trees, much of which could have been avoided with available abatement technology. A lot of finger pointing followed between victims an d agencies trying to fix the blame on an identifiable culprit. The recent p rivatization of some of the National Weather Service's former responsibilit ies added fuel to the fire. Without touching these politically "hot potatoe s" the present paper gives a brief account of observational facts and then describes the results from an inexpensive, PC-based, operational forecastin g system. That system has been described earlier (Reiter, 1991; Teixeira an d Reiter, 1995; Reiter et al., 1998). The advantage of a "hybrid" system in which the user can interact with, and modify, the forecast "on the fly" is demonstrated.