Quantifying the Impacts of Surface Heat Fluxes and Latent Heat Release on the January 2018 Bomb Cyclone Event using the WRF

Rapidly-intensifying extratropical cyclones, also known as bomb cyclones, are a complex problem for operational forecasters and researchers. Understanding and correctly representing diabatic processes, such as sensible and latent heat fluxes as well as latent heat release from condensation in deep convection and precipitation bands is essential to correctly forecasting and analyzing the development of an intense cyclone. In order to address this problem, the 3rd - 5th January 2018 bomb cyclone event off the East Coast of the United States will be used as a case study, running the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) at a 1-3 km resolution in order to resolve convective events and boundary layer processes that influence the development of the cyclone. Running the WRF in different scenarios with air-sea interactions turned on and off and comparing these runs to each other will allow the role of surface heat fluxes and heating from condensation to be more precisely quantified in their influence on the intensity and development of the system for this particular event. These results will be compared to ERA5 reanalysis of the storm event to show how well the model handles the intensification and development of the storm system. From this, it may give us a better understanding of the ways in which PBL processes and convection directly influence the synoptic scale development of extratropical cyclones.