Capabilities and Limitations of Convection-Permitting WRF Simulations of Lake-Effect Systems over the Great Salt Lake

Abstract

Abstract Although previous studies suggest that the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model can produce physically realistic banded Great Salt Lake–effect (GSLE) precipitation features, the accuracy and reliability of these simulations for forecasting applications remains unquantified. The ability of the WRF to simulate nonbanded GSLE features is also unknown. This paper uses subjective, traditional, and object-based verification to evaluate convection-permitting (1.33-km grid spacing) WRF simulations of 11 banded and 8 nonbanded GSLE events. In all simulations, the WRF was configured with the Thompson microphysics and the Yonsei University (YSU) planetary boundary layer parameterizations. Subjectively, a majority of the simulations of banded GSLE events produce physically realistic precipitation features. In contrast, simulations of nonbanded GSLE events rarely produce physically realistic precipitation features and sometimes erroneously produce banded precipitation features. Simulations of banded GSLE events produce equitable threat scores (ETSs) comparable to other convective-storm verification studies, whereas simulations of nonbanded events exhibit lower ETSs. Object-based verification shows that the WRF tends to generate precipitation to the right (relative to the flow) and downstream of observed. These results, although based on a specific WRF parameterization suite, suggest that deterministic prediction of GSLE using convection-permitting models will prove challenging in practice with current numerical models. In addition, identifying and addressing the causes of the rightward and downstream precipitation bias is necessary to achieve optimal performance from future probabilistic and/or deterministic high-resolution forecast systems.