Assimilation of a coordinated fleet of uncrewed aircraft system observations in complex terrain: Observing System Experiments

Abstract Uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) observations from the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-operated Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE) field campaign were assimilated into a high-resolution configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The impact of assimilating targeted UAS observations in addition to surface observations was compared to that obtained when assimilating surface observations alone using observing system experiments (OSEs) for a terrain-driven flow case and a convection initiation (CI) case observed within Colorado’s San Luis Valley (SLV). The assimilation of UAS observations in addition to surface observations results in a clear increase in skill for both flow regimes over that obtained when assimilating surface observations alone. For the terrain-driven flow case, the UAS observations improved the representation of thermal stratification across the northern SLV which produced stronger upvalley flow over the eastern half of the SLV that better matched the observations. For the CI case, the UAS observations improved the representation of the pre-convective environment by reducing dry biases across the SLV and over the surrounding terrain. This led to earlier CI and more organized convection over the foothills that spilled outflows into the SLV, ultimately helping to increase low-level convergence and CI there. In addition, the importance of UAS capturing an outflow that originated over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and triggered CI is discussed. These outflows and subsequent CI were not well-captured in the simulation that assimilated surface observations alone. Observations obtained with a fleet of UAS are shown to notably improve high-resolution analyses and short-term predictions of two very different mesogamma-scale weather events.