Case Study: August 2005 moving precipitation system over West Africa Benjamin Lamptey NCAR (RAL) July 6, 2005 lamptey@ucar.edu

Motivation Meso-scale (1000 – 100,000km2) – most disciplines and models can be integrated in AMMA Complies with both hydrologic and atmospheric model capabilities Scale of MCS and many surface-atmosphere interactions Scale to expected to directly benefit from EOP/SOP observations

Objective Compare atmospheric and hydrologic simulations between them and with observations First step in science integration – will prepare further studies based on SOP observations Need to validate MSAM outputs and ensure outputs comply with forcing of MSHM and vice-versa.

Model WRF version 2.1.2 Grid resolution is 12 km, 4km Grid size: 251x201, 216x196, 31 levels BC and IC: NCEP and ECMWF Period of simulation Aug. 27:00UTC to August 30:00UTC

Simulation domain

Satellite Evidence

Animation 1 BMJ WSM6 ECMWF

Animation 2 KF Lin et al. ECMWF

Animation 3 KF Thompson ECMWF

Animation summary Animation 1 BMJ WSM6 ECMWF Reasonable timing, wrong orientation Animation 2 KF Lin et al. 4 hour delay, reasonable orientation Animation 3 Thompson 5 hour delay, reasonable orientation

24-hour rain 6h-6h Aug 27 KF WSM6 ECMWF CPC WRF

24-hour rain 6h-6h Aug 28 KF WSM6 ECMWF WRF CPC

Summary WRF has the potential to simulate the moving rainfall system if an optimal model configuration for West Africa is obtained There is a qualitative agreement between WRF and CPC data for the 24 hour rainfall

To do list Compare results with observations (making use of more variables) Evaluation of analysis used to initialize the model –includes comparing simulation to analyses To run WRF in an operational mode over Africa (any help with funding?): Technology Transfer? WRFCM, CLM