Robert M. Banta, Yelena L. Pichugina, W. Alan Brewer, Kelly A. Balmes, Bianca Adler, Joseph Sedlar, Lisa S. Darby, David D. Turner, Jaymes S. Kenyon, Edward J. Strobach, Brian J. Carroll, Justin Sharp, Mark T. Stoelinga, Joel Cline, Harindra J.S. Fernando
Abstract Doppler-lidar wind-profile measurements at three sites were used to evaluate NWP model errors from two versions of NOAA’s 3-km-grid HRRR model, to see whether updates in the latest version-4 reduced errors when compared against the original version-1. Nested (750-m-grid) versions of each were also tested to see how grid spacing affected forecast skill. The measurements were part of the field phase of the Second Wind Forecasting Improvement Project (WFIP2), an 18-month deployment into central Oregon/Washington, a major wind-energy producing region. This study focuses on errors in simulating marine intrusions, a summertime, 600-to-800-m deep, regional sea-breeze flow found to generate large errors. HRRR errors proved to be complex and site dependent. The most prominent error resulted from a premature drop in modeled marine-intrusion wind speeds after local midnight, when lidar-measured winds of greater than 8 m s −1 persisted through the next morning. These large negative errors were offset at low levels by positive errors due to excessive mixing, complicating the interpretation of model ‘improvement,’ such that the updates to the full-scale versions produced mixed results, sometimes enhancing but sometimes degrading model skill. Nesting consistently improved model performance, version-1’s nest producing the smallest errors overall. HRRR’s ability to represent the stages of sea-breeze forcing was evaluated using radiation-budget, surface-energy balance, and near-surface temperature measurements available during WFIP2. The significant site-to-site differences in model error and the complex nature of these errors means that field-measurement campaigns having dense arrays of profiling sensors are necessary to properly diagnose and characterize model errors, as part of a systematic approach to NWP model improvement.
利用三个站点的多普勒激光雷达风廓线测量来评估NOAA 3公里栅格HRRR模型的两个版本的NWP模型误差,以了解与原始版本1相比,最新版本4的更新是否减少了误差。每个模型的嵌套(750米网格)版本也进行了测试,以了解网格间距如何影响预测技能。这些测量是第二次风力预报改进项目(WFIP2)现场阶段的一部分,该项目为期18个月,部署在主要的风能产区俄勒冈州/华盛顿州中部。这项研究的重点是模拟海洋入侵的误差,夏季600- 800米深的区域性海风流被发现会产生很大的误差。HRRR错误被证明是复杂的,并且依赖于站点。最突出的错误是由于模拟的海洋入侵风速在当地午夜后过早下降,激光雷达测量到的大于8 m s - 1的风速持续到第二天早上。由于过度混合,这些大的负误差在低水平上被正误差抵消,使模型“改进”的解释复杂化,因此对全尺寸版本的更新产生了混合的结果,有时增强但有时降低了模型技能。嵌套一致地提高了模型性能,版本1的嵌套总体上产生的错误最小。利用WFIP2期间可用的辐射收支、地表能量平衡和近地表温度测量,对HRRR表征海风强迫阶段的能力进行了评估。模型误差的显著点对点差异以及这些误差的复杂性意味着,作为改进NWP模型的系统方法的一部分,具有密集剖面传感器阵列的现场测量活动对于正确诊断和表征模型误差是必要的。
{"title":"Measurements and model improvement: Insight into NWP model error using Doppler lidar and other WFIP2 measurement systems","authors":"Robert M. Banta, Yelena L. Pichugina, W. Alan Brewer, Kelly A. Balmes, Bianca Adler, Joseph Sedlar, Lisa S. Darby, David D. Turner, Jaymes S. Kenyon, Edward J. Strobach, Brian J. Carroll, Justin Sharp, Mark T. Stoelinga, Joel Cline, Harindra J.S. Fernando","doi":"10.1175/mwr-d-23-0069.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-23-0069.1","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Doppler-lidar wind-profile measurements at three sites were used to evaluate NWP model errors from two versions of NOAA’s 3-km-grid HRRR model, to see whether updates in the latest version-4 reduced errors when compared against the original version-1. Nested (750-m-grid) versions of each were also tested to see how grid spacing affected forecast skill. The measurements were part of the field phase of the Second Wind Forecasting Improvement Project (WFIP2), an 18-month deployment into central Oregon/Washington, a major wind-energy producing region. This study focuses on errors in simulating marine intrusions, a summertime, 600-to-800-m deep, regional sea-breeze flow found to generate large errors. HRRR errors proved to be complex and site dependent. The most prominent error resulted from a premature drop in modeled marine-intrusion wind speeds after local midnight, when lidar-measured winds of greater than 8 m s −1 persisted through the next morning. These large negative errors were offset at low levels by positive errors due to excessive mixing, complicating the interpretation of model ‘improvement,’ such that the updates to the full-scale versions produced mixed results, sometimes enhancing but sometimes degrading model skill. Nesting consistently improved model performance, version-1’s nest producing the smallest errors overall. HRRR’s ability to represent the stages of sea-breeze forcing was evaluated using radiation-budget, surface-energy balance, and near-surface temperature measurements available during WFIP2. The significant site-to-site differences in model error and the complex nature of these errors means that field-measurement campaigns having dense arrays of profiling sensors are necessary to properly diagnose and characterize model errors, as part of a systematic approach to NWP model improvement.","PeriodicalId":18824,"journal":{"name":"Monthly Weather Review","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135825950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael J. Hosek, Conrad L. Ziegler, M. Biggerstaff, Todd A. Murphy, Zhien Wang
This case study analyzes a tornadic supercell observed in northeast Louisiana as part of the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment Southeast (VORTEX-SE) on April 6-7 2018. One mobile research radar (SR1-P), one WSR-88D equivalent (KULM), and two airborne radars (TAFT and TFOR) have sampled the storm at close proximity for ~70 minutes through its mature phase, tornadogenesis at 2340 UTC, and dissipation and subsequent ingestion into a developing MCS segment. The 4-D wind field and reflectivity from up to four-Doppler analyses, combined with 4-D diabatic Lagrangian analysis (DLA, Ziegler 2013a,b) retrievals, has enabled kinematic and thermodynamic analysis of storm-scale boundaries leading up to, during, and after the dissipation of the NWS-surveyed EF-0 tornado. The kinematic and thermodynamic analyses reveal a transient current of low-level streamwise vorticity leading into the low-level supercell updraft, appearing similar to the streamwise vorticity current (SVC) that has been identified in supercell simulations and previously observed only kinematically. Vorticity dynamical calculations demonstrate that both baroclinity and horizontal stretching play significant roles in the generation and amplification of streamwise vorticity associated with this SVC. While the SVC does not directly feed streamwise vorticity to the tornado-cyclone, its development coincides with tornadogenesis and an intensification of the supercell’s main low-level updraft, although a causal relationship is unclear. Although the mesoscale environment is not high-shear/low-CAPE (HSLC), the updraft of the analyzed supercell shares some similarities to past observations and simulations of HSLC storms in the Southeast US, most notably a pulse-like updraft which is maximized in the low to mid-levels of the storm.
{"title":"Relation Between Baroclinity, Horizontal Vorticity, and Mesocyclone Evolution in the 6-7 April 2018 Monroe, LA Tornadic Supercell During VORTEX-SE","authors":"Michael J. Hosek, Conrad L. Ziegler, M. Biggerstaff, Todd A. Murphy, Zhien Wang","doi":"10.1175/mwr-d-22-0313.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-22-0313.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This case study analyzes a tornadic supercell observed in northeast Louisiana as part of the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment Southeast (VORTEX-SE) on April 6-7 2018. One mobile research radar (SR1-P), one WSR-88D equivalent (KULM), and two airborne radars (TAFT and TFOR) have sampled the storm at close proximity for ~70 minutes through its mature phase, tornadogenesis at 2340 UTC, and dissipation and subsequent ingestion into a developing MCS segment. The 4-D wind field and reflectivity from up to four-Doppler analyses, combined with 4-D diabatic Lagrangian analysis (DLA, Ziegler 2013a,b) retrievals, has enabled kinematic and thermodynamic analysis of storm-scale boundaries leading up to, during, and after the dissipation of the NWS-surveyed EF-0 tornado.\u0000The kinematic and thermodynamic analyses reveal a transient current of low-level streamwise vorticity leading into the low-level supercell updraft, appearing similar to the streamwise vorticity current (SVC) that has been identified in supercell simulations and previously observed only kinematically. Vorticity dynamical calculations demonstrate that both baroclinity and horizontal stretching play significant roles in the generation and amplification of streamwise vorticity associated with this SVC. While the SVC does not directly feed streamwise vorticity to the tornado-cyclone, its development coincides with tornadogenesis and an intensification of the supercell’s main low-level updraft, although a causal relationship is unclear.\u0000Although the mesoscale environment is not high-shear/low-CAPE (HSLC), the updraft of the analyzed supercell shares some similarities to past observations and simulations of HSLC storms in the Southeast US, most notably a pulse-like updraft which is maximized in the low to mid-levels of the storm.","PeriodicalId":18824,"journal":{"name":"Monthly Weather Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47544728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this study, a marine fog event that occurred from 0000 to 1800 UTC 7 September 2018 near Canada’s Grand Banks is used to investigate the sensitivity of simulated fog properties to six model parameters found primarily in the microphysics scheme. To do so, we ran a large suite of regional simulations that spanned the life cycle of the fog event using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). We randomly selected parameter combinations for the simulation suite and used Gaussian process regression to emulate the response of a variety of simulated fog properties to the parameters. We find that the microphysics shape parameter, which controls the relative width of the droplet size distribution, and the aerosol number concentration have the greatest impact on fog in terms of spatial extent, duration, and surface visibility. In general, parameters that reduce mean fall speed of droplets and/or suppress drizzle formation lead to reduced visibility in fog but also delayed onset, shorter lifetimes, and reduced spatial extent. The importance of the distribution width suggests a need for better characterization of this property for fog droplet distributions and better treatment of this property in microphysics schemes.
{"title":"Identifying Important Microphysical Properties and Processes for Marine Fog Forecasts","authors":"Nathan Hexum Pope, A. Igel","doi":"10.1175/mwr-d-22-0294.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-22-0294.1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this study, a marine fog event that occurred from 0000 to 1800 UTC 7 September 2018 near Canada’s Grand Banks is used to investigate the sensitivity of simulated fog properties to six model parameters found primarily in the microphysics scheme. To do so, we ran a large suite of regional simulations that spanned the life cycle of the fog event using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). We randomly selected parameter combinations for the simulation suite and used Gaussian process regression to emulate the response of a variety of simulated fog properties to the parameters. We find that the microphysics shape parameter, which controls the relative width of the droplet size distribution, and the aerosol number concentration have the greatest impact on fog in terms of spatial extent, duration, and surface visibility. In general, parameters that reduce mean fall speed of droplets and/or suppress drizzle formation lead to reduced visibility in fog but also delayed onset, shorter lifetimes, and reduced spatial extent. The importance of the distribution width suggests a need for better characterization of this property for fog droplet distributions and better treatment of this property in microphysics schemes.","PeriodicalId":18824,"journal":{"name":"Monthly Weather Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47293533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Equity, Inclusion, and Justice: An Opportunity for Action for AMS\u0000 Publications Stakeholders","authors":"","doi":"10.1175/mwr-d-23-0173.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-23-0173.1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18824,"journal":{"name":"Monthly Weather Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48818460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}