Basic Convective and Mesoscale Research
Perform fundamental research on mesoscale and convective weather processes, supporting NOAA's goal to serve society's need for weather and water information
The primary goals of this original CIMMS thematic area are to understand cloud and mesoscale dynamics, microphysics and the precipitation process and their relationships to large and small scale forcing, and to develop procedures for assimilation of meteorological data into simulation and prediction models of these processes. The work done here represents a fundamental building block for eventual applied techniques.
Research on mesoscale and convective weather processes will lead to:
- Improved understanding of the structure and behavior of deep convection such as supercell storms, tornadoes, damaging straight-line winds, large hail, and heavy snow.
- Improved understanding of the feedbacks between cloud microphysical, radiative transfer, and dynamical processes
- Improved understanding of mesoscale dynamics and storm scale data assimilation
Research funded under this theme in fiscal year 2007:
| Convective Weather Research: Severe Weather Warning Applications and Development | Coniglio (primary – CIMMS at NSSL), Wicker, Mansell |
| Objectives: Develop storm-scale data assimilation methods to be used for “warn on forecast” applications; examine performance of the ensemble Kalman filter for multiple convective modes and for assimilating multiple types of observations into numerical models; examine the sensitivity of the analyses to changes in the implementation of the EnKF algorithm for both practical considerations and to understand better how the assimilation procedure works on the storm scale with a complex convective situation. [more] | |
| Convective Weather Research: Discrimination of Mesoscale Convective System Environments Using Sounding Observations | Coniglio (primary – CIMMS at NSSL), Cohen, Corfidi, Taylor |
| Objectives: Identify environmental variables that may help to determine if a given quasi-linear mesoscale convective system (MCS) will produce widespread severe surface winds on 3-12 h time scales, with focus on the details of the kinematic environment and how the wind profiles may impact the strength and motion of the systems, which will hopefully provide forecasters with information that can be used to improve the shortterm prediction of MCS. [more] | |
| Investigation of Synoptic and Mesoscale Meteorological Processes Associated with Hazardous Weather: Thunderstorm Electrification Modeling | Mansell (primary – CIMMS at NSSL), Ziegler, Straka, MacGorman, Silveira, Cohen |
| Objectives: Gain insight into electrification and microphysical processes and lightning behavior of thunderstorms through numerical simulation. [more] | |
| Investigation of Synoptic and Mesoscale Meteorological Processes Associated with Hazardous Weather: Formation and Dynamics of Mammatus and Thunderstorm Outflow Anvils | Schultz and Kanak (co-primary – CIMMS at NSSL and CIMMS at OU), Straka, Trapp, Gordon, Zrnic, Bryan, Durant, Garrett, Klein, Lilly |
| Objectives: Review the state of the art knowledge of mammatus clouds; numerically investigate the dynamics and microphysics of mammatus clouds associated with cirrus outflow anvils and compare the results with observations and theory; isolate the conditions under which mammatus clouds form and are detectable, make case studies of mammatus events, and to continue to collect soundings, photographs and other observations of mammatus events. [more] | |
| Doppler Radar Data Quality Control, Analyses, and Assimilation | Xu (primary – NSSL), P. Zhang, Nai, Wei, H. Lu, collaborators at NSSL, NCEP, NRL, Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) in Beijing, and Lanzhou University |
| Objectives: Advance knowledge and skill in storm-scale data assimilation; develop state-of-the-art technologies and software for real-time applications of remotely sensed high-resolution measurements, especially those from Doppler radars, to improve numerical nowcasts and forecasts of severe storms and hazardous weather conditions. [more] | |
| System for Atmospheric Modeling with Explicit Microphysics – SAMEX | Y. Kogan (primary – CIMMS at OU), Mechem |
| Objectives: Develop a large eddy simulation (LES) model with explicit microphysics capable of running on advanced, distributed-parallel computing architectures. [more] | |
| The Role of Precipitation on Large Eddy Simulations of Trade Cumulus | Mechem (primary – CIMMS at OU), Y. Kogan |
| Objectives: Employ large eddy simulation with size-resolving microphysics (SAMEX) to evaluate the role of precipitation in trade cumulus dynamics. [more] | |
| The Role of a Dynamically-Balanced Dataset in Cloud Microphysics Parameterization Development | Y. Kogan (primary – CIMMS at OU), Corrao |
| Objectives: Explore the effect of dataset selection on cloud microphysics parameterization. [more] | |
| Mesoscale Dynamics and Mesoscale Applications of Information Theory | Xu (primary – NSSL), Lei, Gao, collaborators at NSSL and Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) in Beijing |
| Objectives: Explore various instability mechanisms that will provide possible explanations for initiation of some observed mesoscale rainbands and severe storm elements embedded in frontal rainbands, including but not limited to studies of modal and non-modal growths and structures in the presence of symmetric stability and instability. [more] | |
| Numerical Modeling Study of the Time-Dependent Behavior of Convection | Doswell (primary – CIMMS at OU), Weber, Loftus, Baranowski, DuFran |
| Objectives: Determine how environmental factors, notably the forcing that initiates deep convection and the environmental wind and thermodynamic profiles, control the time-dependent behavior of deep convective storms. [more] | |
| Vertical Vortices in the Convective Boundary Layer | Kanak (primary – CIMMS at OU), Snow, Lilly |
| Objectives: Identify the dynamical mechanisms of vertical vortex formation in the convective boundary layer and assess the role of these vertical vortices on boundary layer processes. [more] | |
| Martian Dust Devils | Kanak (primary – CIMMS at OU), Cantor, Edgett |
| Objectives: Analyze Martian dust devil characteristics as determined by Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) images and make comparisons with terrestrial dust devils; gain insight into dust devil formation and maintenance dynamics, and their role in boundary layer processes, by comparison of their characteristics in two different atmospheres. [more] | |
| Evaluation of Microphysical Parameterizations | Straka (primary – OU School of Meteorology), Gilmore, Kanak, Rasmussen |
| Objectives: Explore the physical consistency of certain microphysical parameterizations with the physical processes they are designed to represent. [more] | |
| Adaptive High-Order Methods for Nonhydrostatic Numerical Weather Prediction | Mavriplis (primary – CIMMS at NSSL), Wicker, Williams, Crowell, St.-Cyr, Thomas |
| Objectives: Explore the efficiency of high-order and adaptive formulations for nonhydrostatic equations. [more] | |
| Firewhirls and Firefighter Safety | Kanak (primary – CIMMS at OU), Savadel, Davis, Snow |
| Objectives: Isolate the meteorological conditions that support Firewhirls in order to provide this information to firefighters to increase their safety. [more] | |