1. Tornado Outbreak Modeling
Caroline MacDonald
Project Goal: The development of an error growth function for forecasts of tornadic severe weather outbreaks using a high-resolution mesoscale model.

2. General Background Information
WRF-ARW = Weather Research & Forecasting Model (Advanced Research WRF)

3. Generalized Timeline Determine favorable tornado outbreaks
Download NARR data
NARR = North American Regional Reanalysis
Build WRF-ARW code fitting our parameters to run
12 km spatial resolution, 30 sec. temporal resolution
Once all of our simulations have run, will analyze the data to hopefully form an error function

4. How to Achieve This Goal
Five major tornado outbreak simulations.
Each outbreak will contain ten randomized initial conditions with five different lead times tested (24 hr., 48 hr., 72 hr., 96 hr., and 120 hr.)
250 total simulations
Can utilize OpenMP, MPI, or a hybrid version here when building our code.

5. Why is This Important?
Forecasters need to have the ability to accurately predict tornadic outbreaks several day in advance.
Meteorologists currently have limitations when it comes to medium-term predictability of outbreaks.
This project could help address these challenges in medium-term forecasting of outbreaks.

6. Questions?
Contact Info:
Caroline MacDonald