A scheme of assimilating radar-retrieved water vapor is adopted to improve the quality of NWP initial field for improvement of the accuracy of short-range precipitation prediction. To reveal the impact of the assimilation of radar-retrieved water vapor on short-term precipitation forecast, three parallel experiments, cold start, hot start and hot start plus the assimilation of radar-retrieved water vapor, are designed to simulate the 31 days of May, 2013 with a fine numerical model for South China. Furthermore, a case of heavy rain that occurred from 8-9 May 2013 over the region from the southwest of Guangdong province to Pearl River Delta is analyzed in detail. Results show that the cold start experiment is not conducive to precipitation 12 hours ahead; the hot start experiment is able to reproduce well the first6 hours of precipitation, but badly for subsequent prediction; the experiment of assimilating radar-retrieved water vapor is not only able to simulate well the precipitation 6 hours ahead, but also able to correctly predict the evolution of rain bands from 6 to 12 hours in advance.
To improve the wind and precipitation forecasts over South China, a modified orographic drag parameterization（OP） scheme that considers both the gravity wave drag（GWD） and the mountain blocking drag（MBD） effects was implemented in the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System Tropical Mesoscale Model（GRAPES-TMM）. Simulations were performed over one month starting from 1200 UTC19 June 2013. The initial and lateral boundary conditions were obtained from the NCEP global forecast system output. The simulation results were compared among a control（CTL） experiment without the OP scheme, a GWDO experiment with the OP scheme that considers only the GWD effect, and an MBD experiment with the modified OP scheme（including both GWD and MBD）. The simulation with the modified OP scheme successfully captured the main features of precipitation, including its distribution and intensity,and improved the wind circulation forecast in the lower troposphere. The modified OP scheme appears to improve the wind forecast by accelerating the ascending air motion and reinforcing the convergence in the rainfall area. Overall, the modified OP scheme exerts positive impacts on the forecast of large-scale atmospheric fields in South China.
The parameterization of gravity wave drag induced by sub-grid scale orography(GWDO), which has been used in the regional model based on the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System for Tropical Mesoscale Model(GRAPES_TMM), is extended to include the effect of mountain flow blocking drag(MBD). The extended scheme is evaluated against non-GWDO parameterization, including a cold air outbreak over southern China and a monthly verification in February 2012. The experiment results show that the GWDO and MBD parameterization both improves the forecasting of the cold air outbreaks over southern China, as well as alleviations of system bias of GRAPES_TMM.(1) The extended scheme alleviates the strong southerly wind and high surface temperature simulation during the cold air outbreak, especially over northern Guangxi and Guangdong(NGG) province, where local high surface temperature simulation reduces nearly 5 degree.(2) The MBD parameterization improves southerly wind simulations over NGG, as well as surface temperature forecasts improvement over Guangxi, Guizhou province and southern Yunnan-Guizhou plateau(YUP), and low level southerly wind simulation improvement over intertidal zone over south China.(3) The formation of MBD is mainly in the mountain area(Wuyi, Daba mountain, east of YUP) and coastal area. The MBD over plateau, which is mainly formed at the west of 105°E, is stronger and thicker than that over Nanling mountain.(4) The improvement of GWDO and MBD parameterization is stable in model physics. MBD parameterization demonstrates more overall improvements in the forecasts than GWDO, and the larger of the model forecast error is, the greater improvements of MBD contribute to. Overall, the extended GWDO scheme successfully improves the simulations of meteorological elements forecasting during cold air outbreaks.
