Impact of Coastal Radar Observability on the Forecast of the Track and Rainfall of Typhoon Morakot(2009)Using WRF-based Ensemble Kalman Filter Data Assimilation

This study explored the impact of coastal radar observability on the forecast of the track and rainfall of Typhoon Morakot(2009)using a WRF-based ensemble Kalman filter(EnKF)data assimilation(DA)system.The results showed that the performance of radar EnKF DA was quite sensitive to the number of rada...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in atmospheric sciences 2017, Vol.34 (1), p.66-78
Main Authors: Yue, Jian, Meng, Zhiyong, Yu, Cheng-Ku, Cheng, Lin-Wen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Sciences
Cyclones
Data assimilation
Data collection
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Geophysics/Geodesy
Kalman filters
Meteorology
Original Paper
Radar
Rain
Rainfall
Tropical cyclones
Typhoons
Velocity
Weather forecasting
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Summary:This study explored the impact of coastal radar observability on the forecast of the track and rainfall of Typhoon Morakot(2009)using a WRF-based ensemble Kalman filter(EnKF)data assimilation(DA)system.The results showed that the performance of radar EnKF DA was quite sensitive to the number of radars being assimilated and the DA timing relative to the landfall of the tropical cyclone(TC).It was found that assimilating radial velocity(Vr)data from all the four operational radars during the 6 h immediately before TC landfall was quite important for the track and rainfall forecasts after the TC made landfall.The TC track forecast error could be decreased by about 43% and the 24-h rainfall forecast skill could be almost tripled.Assimilating Vr data from a single radar outperformed the experiment without DA, though with less improvement compared to the multiple-radar DA experiment.Different forecast performances were obtained by assimilating different radars, which was closely related to the first-time wind analysis increment, the location of moisture transport, the quasi-stationary rainband, and the local convergence line.However, only assimilating Vr data when the TC was farther away from making landfall might worsen TC track and rainfall forecasts.Besides, this work also demonstrated that Vr data from multiple radars, instead of a single radar, should be used for verification to obtain a more reliable assessment of the EnKF performance.
ISSN:0256-1530
1861-9533
DOI:10.1007/s00376-016-6028-8