Abstract: Impact of soil moisture initialization on numerical weather forecasting over the Mississippi Delta Region (88th Annual Meeting (20-24 January 2008))

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Impact of soil moisture initialization on numerical weather forecasting over the Mississippi Delta Region

Exhibit Hall B (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)

Valentine Anantharaj, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS; and G. Mostovoy, U. S. Nair, and P. J. Fitzpatrick

Poster PDF (599.4 kB)

Results of mesoscale 72-hr forecasts produced by WRF model runs with two different

soil moisture initializations were compared over the Mississippi Delta Region.

One set of the WRF model forecasts (control runs) were initialized from the NAM analysis

fields at 12-km resolution including 4-layer soil moisture data. Other set of WRF

model runs were started from the same initial conditions except for the soil moisture,

which were substituted by the data simulated by the Noah Land Surface Model (LSM)

available from the Land Information System (LIS). The Noah LSM was integrated at 5-km

resolution in time using the NLDAS meteorological forcing data and two-years spin-up

period. In both cases, thirty forecasts were performed with 4-km grid resolution spanning

the period of June-July 2006. Forecast performance statistics and

moisture budget studies quantifing a magnitude and localization of an atmospheric

response to different soil moisture initializations will be presented.

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