Evaluating Land-Atmosphere processes in a developmental version of the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) coupled to a National Water Model (NWM) configuration of WRF-Hydro during warm season convective events

Warm season convection across the Contiguous United States initiates at small spatial scales (<5 km) and weak large-scale dynamical forcing, and is sensitive to land-surface energy, moisture, and radiation (EMR) flux partitioning. While convective-allowing models such as the operational High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) and the upcoming Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) have high-resolution treatment of topography, land use and land cover, they have simple treatment of land surface hydrologic processes that are often important to governing surface EMR flux partitioning and resulting precipitation. We have successfully coupled the 3-km RRFS with the NoahMP Land Surface Model (LSM) to a 3-km National Water Model configuration of the WRF-Hydro hydrological model (with a 300-m routing grid). We conduct retrospective simulations of a summer case study for both the uncoupled and coupled models and compare precipitation land surface EMR fluxes. Results are compared to available observational networks, including surface meteorological stations and DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) data in the Southern Great Plains.