Validating high-resolution WRF model on a non-severe thunderstorm case with strong lightning activity in southeastern Brazil

Regional-scale numerical models are widely used assisting in severe weather forecasting in order to provide alerts and to adopt strategies that eliminate, or minimize, injuries and hazardous situations. To ensure that numerical models reliably recognize the atmospheric conditions, its accuracy is often evaluated through statistical analyses, such as skill scores calculating. In this work, the performance of high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulation in reproducing a South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) event with strong lightning activity during the second half of January 2012 in southeastern Brazil will be investigated using two different approaches. The first analysis consists to compute skill scores for WRF precipitation and surface wind using radar reflectivity, lightning, and automatic surface stations data over the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo city (RMSP). The last study compares atmospheric vertical profiles and instability indices, such as Showalter (SW), Total Totals (TT), and K, obtained from the high-resolution WRF simulation with observational radiosonde data in the RMSP study area. From the discussions in this work, it is expected to identify what can be improved in the WRF model performance for a better characterization and description of meteorological phenomena in the study region.