P38 Short-term forecasts using NU-WRF for the Winter Olympics 2018

Srikishen, Jayanthi, Universities Space Research Association (USRA)/National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center (SPoRT), Jonathan Case, ENSCO Inc/NASA SPoRT, Takamichi Iguchi, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GFSC), Wei-Kuo Tao, NASA/GSFC, Walter Petersen, Bradley Zavodsky, and Andrew Molthan, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

The NASA Unified-Weather Research and Forecasting model (NU-WRF) will be used to provide short-range forecasts for the International Collaborative Experiments for PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic (ICE-POP2018) Winter Games. ICE-POP is a winter-season forecast and research demonstration project (FDP/RDP) being led by the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA) in conjunction with the 2018 Winter Olympics. An international array of radar and supporting ground based observations together with various forecast and nowcast models will operational during ICE-POP. In conjunction with personnel from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center is developing benchmark simulations for a real-time NU-WRF configuration to run during the FDP, and will use ICE-POP observational datasets to validate model simulations and investigate improvements to model physics and performance for prediction of heavy snow events during the research phase of the project. The NU-WRF model simulations will also support NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission ground-validation activities in relation to verifying, testing and improving satellite-based snowfall retrieval algorithms over complex terrain. .

Currently SPoRT is exploring a NASA-centric configuration using the latest Goddard microphysics and radiation parameterization schemes for an Eastern Korea Snowstorm case, using initial and boundary conditions supplied by the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) model and Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) provided by SPoRT's 2-km resolution northern hemispheric blended SST product. The model will be configured with three domains (9-km, 3-km and 1-km horizontal grid spacing) with sufficient vertical resolution to provide 100-m output in the lowest two kilometers above ground level. This presentation will focus on preliminary results of the benchmark run and discuss the real-time forecasting challenges for supporting ICE-POP2018.