MPAS-Atmosphere 
2015 Convection
Forecast Experiment

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The MPAS group in MMM/NCAR is performing a real-time convection prediction experiment with MPAS-Atmosphere from 4 May to 29 May 2015.  We are producing 5 day forecasts initialized at 0 UTC from the operational GFS analysis.

We are continuing the MPAS forecasts through the PECAN field experiment, producing 3-day  forecasts initialized at 0 UTC from the operational GFS analysis.

The May forecasts are using 50-3 km variable-resolution that places the 3 km cell spacing over North America. The mesh spacings for the variable-resolution meshes are depicted below.  The June forecasts are using a 15-3 km mesh (depicted below the 50-3 km mesh).

Mesh used for the May forecasts
MPAS_tc_2014 meshes


Mesh used for the June-July (PECAN) forecasts
MPAS_conv_exp_15-3_mesh
The physics used in these forecasts, taken from the WRF model, are

Surface Layer: module_sf_mynn.F as in WRF 3.5.
PBL: Mellor-Yamada-Nakanishi-Niino (MYNN) as in WRF 3.6.1.
Land Surface Model (NOAH 4-layers): as in WRF 3.6.1.
Gravity Wave Drag: none
Convection:  Grell-Freitas scale aware scheme (modified from WRF 3.6.1)
Microphysics: WSM6: as in WRF 3.5
Radiation: RRTMG sw as in WRF 3.4.1;  RRTMG lw as in WRF 3.4.1