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Overview of USWRP’s International H 2 O Project (IHOP_2002)

This overview provides information on IHOP_2002, including research goals, preliminary highlights, and modeling plans. The project aims to improve predictions of convective rainfall amounts through improved measurements of water vapor.

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Overview of USWRP’s International H 2 O Project (IHOP_2002)

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  1. Overview of USWRP’s International H2O Project (IHOP_2002) David B. Parsons and Tammy Weckwerth NCAR/ATD • IHOP facts and research goals • Preliminary highlights • Modeling plans

  2. IHOP_2002 Hypothesis Improved measurements of water vapor will lead to a corresponding improvement in our ability to predict convective rainfall amounts. Note: 0-12 h forecasts in an environment where the dyamics is well characterized.

  3. Isentrophic Airflow and IHOP Sounding Domain Isentropic streamlines (37 C) for 2330 UTC 4 May 1961. The dashed lines are isobars at 100 hPa intervals (from Carlson and Ludlam 1968)

  4. Some Research Goals Directly Relevant to QPF • Improved understanding and prediction of convective onset. • Determine the degree of improvement in forecast skill that occurs through improved characterization of the water vapor field (0-6/12 h) in an environment where the dynamics are relatively well captured. • Improved understanding and treatment of the relationship between atmospheric water vapor, soil moisture, surface fluxes and boundary layer processes. • Improved assimilation of water vapor measurements for warm season events (including satellite data). • Determine the future optimal mix of satellite, ground-based and surface water vapor measurement strategies for warm season rainfall.

  5. IHOP Summary: 13 May to 25 June • >200 Investigators and technical participants • ~2500 additional soundings • > 50 instrument platforms, 6 aircraft, 36 IOPs • 268 h of airborne water vapor lidar measurements • 76 h of airborne satellite evaluation measurements (S-HIS and NAST) • Dedicated GOES-11 data

  6. S-Pol Refractivity Retrieval dryline warm/dry dryline cool/moist • variations in q, T and p • boundary detection • advection • QPF, CI, ABL and inst • Lower ABL

  7. Refractivity: One Day After Heavy Rainfall Aircraft In-situ data N: Ts=45,Theta60=307, q60 = 8.5 S: Ts=32,Theta60=306.2, q60 = 11

  8. Evolution of the dryline

  9. Nocturnal Convection An example of a nocturnal undular bore

  10. Example of a Nocturnal Undular Bore Doppler Velocity Example of a Nocturnal Undular Bore

  11. Bore Example (Radar RHI)

  12. BORE Example From MAPR 4 June

  13. Water Vapor: 20 June

  14. Sounding Susceptible to PBL-Based Convection Sounding Susceptible to Elevated Convection DVN (0000 UTC 9/12/2000) GRB (0000 UTC 9/12/2000) From Trier et al. 2002, abstract 130

  15. Convective Initiation of a flash flood

  16. Some Closing Thoughts • Some spectacular convective initiation cases, but often highly dependent on forecaster refinement of model output. Also many null cases (50-50?). • Nocturnal convection is far different than previously thought (bores and jet decoupling). • Potential utility of radar refractivity and high resolution radar composites. • Water vapor vertical cross-sections useful for determining changes in capping inversions for forecasters. (SPC forecaster comment) • Spaced antenna profilers can easily detect intense mesoscale air motions. • Scientist/forecaster interactions were extremely valuable. • Modeling work has only just begun.

  17. Model, Assimilation and Nowcasting Efforts2 • 10-km version of the ETA model (Gallus/U of Iowa) • ARPS non-hydrostatic model1 (Carr et al./CAPS-OU) • Operational RUC (Szoke & Brown et al./NOAA/FSL) • LAPS with MM5 & WRF (Koch et al./NOAA/FSL) • Non-hydrostatic CSU RAMS (Zeigler/NOAA/NSSL) • UW NMS (Mecikalski/UW) • MM5 mesoscale model (Lapenta/GSFC; Mecikalski/UW; Pinto et al./NCAR) • WRF mesoscale model (NCAR) • CRAS mesoscale model (Diak/UW & Davis/Penn State) • Interactive flash flood analyzer and rainfall autonowcaster (Holt et al./NOAA/NESDIS) • NCAR autonowcaster (Wilson et al./NCAR) • NCAR Water Cycle Initiative Group (Cloud model to Community climate model scales) • ETA/WRF NCEP mesoscale branch (after data is cleaned up) • __________________ 1Theseefforts may move to the WRF model during the post-field phase. 2The research includes evaluation of current products, assimilation research, forecasting, and predictability studies.

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