The improvement of short-term quantitative precipitation forecast in mountainous areas by the assimilation of meteorological state variables retrieved by multiple-Doppler radar data

Abstract This study presents a sequential procedure formulated by combining a multiple-Doppler radar wind synthesis technique with a thermodynamic retrieval method, which can be applied to retrieve the three-dimensional wind, pressure, temperature, rainwater mixing ratio, and moisture over complex terrain. The retrieved meteorological state variables are utilized to re-initialize a high-resolution numerical model, which then carries out time integration using four different microphysical (MP) schemes, including the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE), Morrison (MOR), WRF single-moment 6-class (WSM6), and WRF double-moment 6-class (WDM6) schemes. It is found that through this procedure the short-term quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) skill of a numerical model over mountainous areas can be significantly improved up to six hours. The moisture field plays a crucial role in producing the correct rainfall forecast. Since no specific microphysical scheme outperforms the others, a combination of various rainfall scenarios forecasted by different MP schemes is suggested in order to provide a stable and reliable rainfall forecast. This work also demonstrates that, with the proposed approach, radar data from only two volume scans are sufficient to improve the rainfall forecasts. This is because the unobserved meteorological state variables are instantaneously retrieved and directly used to re-initialize the model, thereby the model spin-up time can be effectively shortened.