M.: The Australian Boxing Day storm of 1998 – Synoptic description and numerical simulations, Wea

An intense low pressure system formed in the Bass Strait region of southeastern Australia during the Boxing Day long weekend of 25–28 December 1998. The explosive development of this low commenced on 26 December (Boxing Day) and reached peak intensity on 27 December 1998 with mean wind speeds reported in the 50–60-kt range. The event is referred to, for simplicity, as the Boxing Day storm. There are three objectives of this study. The first is to highlight the rarity of this type of storm during the Australian summer period and to investigate the potential of high-resolution numerical models to distinguish such storm events [winds 48 kt or greater (25 m s21)] from the less destructive and more common gale force (34–47 kt or 17.5–24 m s21) wind speed producing systems. A brief climatology of intense low pressure systems in the region underlines how unusual this system was. The second objective is to investigate the ability of available operational and research-mode global and regional numerical models to provide accurate and reliable advance warning of this major development. With the exception of a locally run high-resolution (10 km) limited area model, run in real-time research mode, all failed to depict accurately the storm force winds associated with this system in the 48-h time frame critical for operational warnings. However, most did predict gale force winds. The success of the locally run higher-resolution mode