Evaluation of Experimental Atmospheric Profiling Systems and WRF-ARW PBL schemes during the 2012 NOAA/HWT Experimental Forecast Program

A new component of the 2012 NOAA/Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Experimental Forecast Program was the evaluation of observing platforms for severe-weather forecasting applications, including a microwave radiometer developed by Radiometrics and radiosonde system developed by InterMet Systems. The goals were 1) to examine the ability of the microwave radiometer to profile the temperature and humidity in the lower troposphere and 2) to intercompare profiles of temperature, humidity, and wind in the full troposphere between the InterMet system and the Vaisala RS-92 radiosonde system. Additionally, the radiosonde profiles were used to evaluate five planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes available in WRF-ARW over the course of the five-week forecast program. The emphasis was on the ability of the observing systems and the WRW-ARW PBL schemes to depict the growth of the convective PBL within regimes of moisture return and moist-convective PBLs prior to convective development. Results from the radiometer profile comparisons to radiosonde profiles, from the intercomparison of the radiosonde systems, and the evaluation of the WRF-ARW PBL schemes will be presented at the conference.