The mesoscale convective system that passed over West Africa (Benin, Togo and dissipated over Ghana) on August 28, 2005 was simulated using the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) model. A 4 km domain was nested within a 12 km domain using two-way nesting.

The standard version of the WRF model was used to initially simulate the mesoscale system as it appeared on the 2200 UTC Meteosat Second Generation satellite picture. A combination of convective schemes and microphysics options were used to assess which combination gave the best results. The National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) analysis data and the European Center for Medium Range Forecast analysis data were used as boundary and initial conditions.

The sensitivity of the results to the spin-up time, number of grid points in the 4 km domain, and initial and boundary conditions were analyzed in this work.