Evaluating the Precipitation Biases over the Western Periphery of the Sichuan Basin with the ECMWF Operational Forecast Model

Abstract

Abstract Based on the hourly merged precipitation product, the performance of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) in simulating the diurnal variations of precipitation during warm season over the western periphery of the Sichuan basin (SCB) has been evaluated, and the underlying physical causes associated with the wet biases have also been investigated. The results show that the IFS well reproduces the spatial distributions of precipitation amount, frequency, and intensity over the SCB, as well as their diurnal variations, but the simulated precipitation peaks earlier than the observation with notable wet biases over the western periphery of the SCB. In addition, the strong wet biases exhibit notable regional differences over the western periphery of the SCB. The simulated wet biases over the southwestern periphery of the SCB expand westward to higher altitudes along the windward slope, with the maximum wet biases occurring at night. The westward expansion of the simulated stronger upward motions results in a westward shift of precipitation. However, the simulated precipitation over the northwestern periphery of the SCB has small difference in terms of the location; hence, the overestimated precipitation is associated with the stronger atmospheric instability, resulting from the higher potential temperature and the larger specific humidity near the surface. The findings revealed in this study indicate that the ECMWF forecast shows distinct uncertainties over the different complex terrain, and thus offers a promising way forward for improvements of model physical processes.