The JCSDA team came from across the country to meet in Boulder, Colorado, in the last week of October, renewing cross-team ties and planning for the JEDI-Skylab developments ahead. The views from the NCAR Mesa Lab of the Flatirons (and for one day, fog) prompted lunchtime hikes and coffee break wildlife-spotting, while technical reviews and breakout sessions prompted quick problem-solving and innovative ideas.

The week started with a science and technical review of Skylab v6, going over the wide number of things that went well and some ways to improve our process so that the Skylab v7 release would run even smoother. Day 2 commenced with a presentation on high-level JCSDA updates by Director Tom Auligné; highlights included NASA GMAO passing their readiness milestones for JEDI and a series of studies showing that initial conditions are an equal or greater factor than the model itself in forecast accuracy, showing just how important JEDI is to national weather prediction! A discussion of the development process and skylab experiments followed, with lots of great ideas and innovations. Day 3 went into a deeper analysis of the development process for Skylab v6 before the team moved on to features and testing for Skylab v7. That discussion continued into the afternoon with cross-team breakout groups focused on specific challenges. After that we left the meeting room for the mountains and headed for the Red Rocks trailhead outside downtown Boulder, taking in Rocky Mountain views from the summit before heading into town for dinner. The relaunch wrapped up with our quarterly review, highlighting wins from across all the JCSDA teams and partners, and a planning session for Skylab v7.

Above: The team celebrates summiting on our Day 3 hike

Above: Hard at work in the function breakout groups