25th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology

Tuesday, 30 April 2002: 5:15 PM
Prediction of tropical cyclone wind structure in Navy operational mesoscale model
Chi-Sann E. Liou, NRL, Monterey, CA
Due to the fact that the distribution of 35-knot wind has larger impacts on Navy operations than the tropical cyclone intensity, prediction of wind structure near tropical cyclone centers becomes an important task to us, next to the track forecast. Upgrades have been made to the Navy operational mesoscale model, Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS), for tropical cyclone wind structure forecast. The upgrades include the development of a tropical cyclone initialization system to better describe initial 3-dimensional structure of tropical cyclones in COAMPS, the development of algorithms to compute 35-knot wind radii in 4 quadrants of tropical cyclones during the model run, and the development of a strategy to move high resolution inner meshes following tropical cyclones in the forecast. Those developments have led to improved tropical cyclone wind structure analysis and forecast in COAMPS without degrading the track forecast. This paper will describe the upgrades as well as the current skill of COAMPS in analyzing and predicting the tropical cyclone wind structure.

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