Intercomparison of WRF Simulations, Radiosonde Meteorological Observations, and Satellite Data for the Paso del Norte Region

The Paso del Norte region is comprised of the city of El Paso, TX, the city of Juarez, Mexico, and neighboring cities in the border region between El Paso and New Mexico. This region is topographically complex and modelling its meteorology is challenging. In this work, we inter-compare Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulations for this region with corresponding radiosonde data and with satellite vertical profile data.

The satellite data was obtained from the Meteorological Operational (MetOP) satellite. The data was retrieved using our own antenna, located at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). The radiosonde data was obtained from a New Mexico State University (NMSU) ozonesonde and radiosonde campaign during the summer of 2017. The data was collected through a collaboration between NMSU, UTEP, and St. Edward’s University.

We set up three model domains with two-way nesting of 36 km, 12 km and 4 km of spatial resolution using WRF for this comparison. Analysis of different parameters like Temperature, Relative humidity, Precipitation, Pressure has been conducted throughout the summer season for this region.

The results of this work will help improve model forecasting capability and provide a better understanding of the meteorology for the Paso del Norte region.