A well-known problem in high-resolution ensembles has been a lack of sufficient spread among members. Modelers often have used mixed physics to increase spread, but this can introduce problems including computational expense, clustering of members, and members that are not all equally skillful. Thus, a detailed examination of the impacts of using mixed physics is important. The present study uses two years of Community Leveraged Unified Ensemble (CLUE) output to isolate the impact of mixed physics in 36-h forecasts made using a convection-permitting ensemble with 3-km horizontal grid spacing. One 10-member subset of the CLUE used only perturbed initial conditions (ICs) and lateral boundary conditions (LBCs) while another 10-member ensemble used the same mixed ICs and LBCs but also introduced mixed physics. The cases examined occurred during NOAA’s Hazardous Weather Testbed Spring Forecast Experiments in 2016 and 2017. Traditional gridpoint metrics applied to each member and the ensemble as a whole, along with object-based verification statistics for all members, were computed for composite reflectivity and 1- and 3-h accumulated precipitation using the Model Evaluation Tools (MET) software package. It is found that the mixed physics increases variability substantially among the ensemble members, more so for reflectivity than precipitation, such that the envelope of members is more likely to encompass the observations. However, the increased variability is mostly due to the introduction of both substantial high biases in members using one microphysical scheme, and low biases in other schemes. Overall ensemble skill is not substantially different from the ensemble using a single physics package.
This paper investigates the ability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model in simulating multiple small-scale precipitation bands (multibands) within the extratropical cyclone comma head using four winter storm cases from 2014 to 2017. Using the model output, some physical processes are explored to investigate band prediction. A 40-member WRF ensemble was constructed down to 2-km grid spacing over the Northeast United States using different physics, stochastic physics perturbations, different initial/boundary conditions from the first five perturbed members of the Global Forecast System (GFS) Ensemble Reforecast (GEFSR), and a stochastic kinetic energy backscatter scheme (SKEBS). It was found that 2-km grid spacing is adequate to resolve most snowbands. A feature-based verification is applied to hourly WRF reflectivity fields from each ensemble member and the WSR-88D radar reflectivity at 2-km height above sea level. The Method for Object-Based Diagnostic Evaluation (MODE) tool is used for identifying multibands, which are defined as two or more bands that are 5–20 km in width and that also exhibit a >2:1 aspect ratio. The WRF underpredicts the number of multibands and has a slight eastward position bias. There is no significant difference in frontogenetical forcing, vertical stability, moisture, and vertical shear between the banded versus nonbanded members. Underpredicted band members tend to have slightly stronger frontogenesis than observed, which may be consolidating the bands, but overall there is no clear linkage in ambient condition errors and band errors, thus leaving the source for the band underprediction motivation for future work.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10113487
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Meteorological Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Weather and Forecasting
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 0882-8156
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 1343-1363
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Nested idealized baroclinic wave simulations at 4-km and 800-m grid spacing are used to analyze the precipitation structures and their evolution in the comma head of a developing extratropical cyclone. After the cyclone spins up by hour 120, snow multibands develop within a wedge-shaped region east of the near-surface low center within a region of 700–500-hPa potential and conditional instability. The cells deepen and elongate northeastward as they propagate north. There is also an increase in 600–500-hPa southwesterly vertical wind shear prior to band development. The system stops producing bands 12 h later as the differential moisture advection weakens, and the instability is depleted by the convection. Sensitivity experiments are run in which the initial stability and horizontal temperature gradient of the baroclinic wave are adjusted by 5%–10%. A 10% decrease in initial instability results in less than half the control run potential instability by 120 h and the cyclone fails to produce multibands. Meanwhile, a 5% decrease in instability delays the development of multibands by 18 h. Meanwhile, decreasing the initial horizontal temperature gradient by 10% delays the growth of vertical shear and instability, corresponding to multibands developing 12–18 h later. Conversely, increasing the horizontal temperature gradient by 10% corresponds to greater vertical shear, resulting in more prolific multiband activity developing ∼12 h earlier. Overall, the relatively large changes in band characteristics over a ∼12-h period (120–133 h) and band evolutions for the sensitivity experiments highlight the potential predictability challenges.
Significance Statement Multiple-banded precipitation structures are difficult to predict and can greatly impact snowfall forecasts. This study investigates the precipitation bands in the comma head of a low pressure system in a numerical model to systematically isolate the roles of different ambient conditions. The results emphasize that environments with instability (e.g., air free to rise after small upward displacement) and increasing winds with height favor the development of banded structures. The forecast challenge for these bands is illustrated by starting the model with relatively small changes in the temperature field. Decreasing the instability by 10% suppresses band development, while increasing (decreasing) the horizontal temperature change across the system by 10% corresponds to the bands developing 12 h earlier (later).
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