On the Use of Advection Correction in Trajectory Calculations

Abstract

Abstract An advection correction procedure is used to mitigate temporal interpolation errors in trajectory analyses constructed from gridded (in space and time) velocity data. The procedure is based on a technique introduced by Gal-Chen to reduce radar data analysis errors arising for the nonsimultaneity of the data collection. Experiments are conducted using data from a high-resolution Cloud Model 1 (CM1) numerical model simulation of a supercell storm initialized within an environment representative of the 24 May 2011 El Reno, Oklahoma, tornadic supercell storm. Trajectory analyses using advection correction are compared to traditional trajectory analyses using linear time interpolation. Backward trajectories are integrated over a 5-min period for a range of data input time intervals and for velocity-pattern-translation estimates obtained from different analysis subdomain sizes (box widths) and first-guess options. The use of advection correction reduces trajectory end-point position errors for a large majority of the trajectories in the analysis domain, with substantial improvements for trajectories launched in the vicinity of the model storm’s gust front and in bands within the rear-flank downdraft. However, the pattern-translation components retrieved by this procedure may be nonunique if the data input time intervals are too large.