The Impact of Stochastically Perturbed Parameterizations on Tornadic Supercell Cases in East China

• Published in: Monthly weather review Vol. 147; no. 1; pp. 199 - 220
• Main Authors: Wang, Shizhang, Qiao, Xiaoshi, Min, Jinzhong, Zhuang, Xiaoran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington American Meteorological Society 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Data assimilation; Data collection; Diffusion; Ensemble forecasting; Errors; Localization; Methods; Microphysics; Parameterization; Perturbation; Perturbations; Procedures; Radar; Radar data; Resampling; Storms; Studies; Thunderstorms; Tornadoes; China
• ISSN: 0027-0644; 1520-0493
• DOI: 10.1175/MWR-D-18-0182.1

The impact of stochastically perturbed parameterizations on short-term tornadic supercell ensemble forecasts (EFs) was evaluated using two tornado cases that occurred in eastern China. The initial condition (IC) perturbations of EFs were generated by a three-dimensional variational data assimilation system with perturbed radar data. The parameterization perturbations of EFs were produced by a stochastic procedure that was applied to diffusion and microphysics parameterizations. This procedure perturbed tendencies from both parameterizations and intercept parameters (INTCPs) of the microphysics parameterizations. In addition to individually perturbing these quantities, a combination of perturbations of diffusion and INTCPs was also examined. A resampling method was proposed to handle perturbations that vary substantially, and a vertical localization was applied to the microphysics tendency perturbations. The results indicated that combining perturbations of diffusion and INTCPs produced the intensity and path forecasts of the low-level vortex (LLV) that better match observations for a weak tornado case; this combination also had a positive impact on the LLV intensity forecast for a much stronger tornado case. This combination outperformed the stochastic procedures that perturbed only diffusion or INTCPs, which indicated that it is better to use both error representations. The vertical localization prevented the temperature tendency perturbations of microphysics from always suppressing storms in negative perturbation (<0.0) areas. The negative INTCP and diffusion perturbations benefited the strong LLV, which is consistent with that of the idealized case. The current stochastic procedure could not address the LLV displacement error that is caused by the IC error.