HR: 12:00h
AN: A32A-10    [Abstracts]
TI: A Comparative Analysis of MM5 and WRF High-Resolution Mesoscale Forecasts Over Variable Terrain
AU: * Colon, E
EM: ecolon@ahpcrc.org
AF: Army High Performance Computing Research Center, Army Research Laboratory 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD 20783 United States
AB: The growing need for accurate, lower mesoscale-limit, numerical weather forecasts provides the impetus for this comparative evaluation of the widely-used 5th generation National Center for Atmospheric Research/Penn State Mesoscale Model (MM5) and the Weather Forecasting and Research (WRF 2.0) Model. A series of simulations was conducted using a single domain, 500 km-squared forecast grids employing 1 km grid cell spacings centered on regions of relatively flat, mountainous, and complex (mixed) terrain and initialized using operational 12 km grid resolution National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Eta model data. Due to the problem size involved in performing these simulations, the Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC) Cray X1 was utilized as the primary computational resource. Surface forecast validation data was provided by the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS). Statistical analyses are presented based on 10 meter surface winds, 2 meter temperature, 2 meter specific humidity, and cumulative precipitation data derived from model forecasts and observational records. Lastly, mesoscale model forecast skill implications are discussed in connection with microscale problems such as turbulence modeling using large eddy simulations and atmospheric signal propagation.
DE: 3329 Mesoscale meteorology
DE: 3337 Numerical modeling and data assimilation
DE: 3379 Turbulence
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting