The radial wind is directly analyzed by NCEP’s Grid-point Statistical Interpolation (GSI) analysis system. The cloud analysis package developed by the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory’s Global Systems Division is adapted for assimilation of WSR-88D radar reflectivity and lightning data within the NAMv4 system. Lightning data from NLDN are used to retrieve radar reflectivity. The retrieved radar reflectivity from lightning data together with radar reflectivity from WSR88D network, surface observations and satellite cloud products are used to update the hydrometeors and derive a temperature tendency in GSI. The hydrometeors and temperature tendency are further used in the forward integration of the digital filter initialization (DFI). The impact of radar and lightning data assimilation on the skill of resulting NAMv4 forecasts will be presented.
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