Microphysical Perturbation Experiments and Ensemble Forecasts on Summertime Heavy Rainfall over Northern Taiwan

Abstract

Abstract Microphysical perturbation experiments were conducted to investigate the sensitivity of convective heavy rain simulation to cloud microphysical parameterization and its feasibility for ensemble forecasts. An ensemble of 20 perturbation members differing in either the microphysics package or process treatments within a single scheme was applied to simulate 10 summer-afternoon heavy-rain convection cases. The simulations revealed substantial disagreements in the location and amplitude of peak rainfall among the microphysics-package and single-scheme members, with an overall spread of 57%–161%, 66%–161%, and 65%–149% of the observed average rainfall, maximum rainfall, and maximum intensity, respectively. The single-scheme members revealed that the simulation of heavy convective precipitation is quite sensitive to factors including ice-particle fall speed parameterization, aerosol type, ice particle shape, and size distribution representation. The microphysical ensemble can derive reasonable probability of occurrence for a location-specific heavy-rain forecast. Spatial-forecast performance indices up to 0.6 were attained by applying an optimal fuzzy radius of about 8 km for the warning-area coverage. The forecasts tend to be more successful for more organized convection. Spectral mapping methods were further applied to provide ensemble forecasts for the 10 heavy rainfall cases. For most cases, realistic spatial patterns were derived with spatial correlation up to 0.8. The quantitative performance in average rainfall, maximum rainfall, and maximum intensity from the ensembles reached correlations of 0.83, 0.84, and 0.51, respectively, with the observed values. Significance Statement Heavy rainfall from summer convections is stochastic in terms of intensity and location; therefore, an accurate deterministic forecast is often challenging. We designed perturbation experiments to explore weather forecasting models’ sensitivity to cloud microphysical parameterizations and the feasibility of application to ensemble forecast. Promising results were obtained from simulations of 10 real cases. The cloud microphysical ensemble approach may provide reasonable forecasts of heavy rainfall probability and convincing rainfall spatial distribution, particularly for more organized convection.