Verification of Reanalysis Datasets for the Summer of 1996 and a Sensitivity Experiment of Different Vertical Levels in WRF Model

Reanalysis data has been improved significantly with continued refinement of Numerical Prediction Models. These datasets are an important tool for climate and meteorology studies, but do not always match observational data. In order to verify the accuracy of reanalysis data, this study did a short time period assessment of two popular reanalyses, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ReAnalysis (ERA-Interim) and the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), for temperature at 2m and precipitation. Results of this verification study indicate that reanalysis datasets did not represent precipitation as well as temperature. For local scale precipitation events, the resolution of those reanalyses are not fine enough. Tropical cyclones are among the most destructive weather systems on earth. Improving performance of forecasting hurricanes can be accomplished with the Weather Forecasting and Research model (WRF). A sensitivity study to the number of vertical levels for a hurricane case is presented in the second part of this study. A 12-km resolution domain covering all of New England is selected for this study. A 48 hour detailed analysis for this hurricane simulation is presented in this section. Result of this study indicates that WRF model is sensitive with different vertical levels but the impact is complex