Abstract
In this study, convection-permitting WRF simulations of tropical cyclones (TC) over the North Indian Ocean (NIO) region were examined for 10 TCs during 2010–2019. The TCs were segregated into four groups, i.e., group-1 [severe cyclonic storms (SCS) Laila, Jal and Helen with short (~ 50 h) intensification period], group-2 [very severe cyclonic storms (VSCS) Vardah, Thane and Lehar with moderate (~ 56 h) intensification period], group-3 [extremely severe cyclonic storm (ESCS) Hudhud and VSCS Gaja with long (~ 60 h) intensification period] and group-RI [rapidly intensified (RI) cyclones Phailin and Fani with very long (~ 75 h) intensification period]. Two numerical experiments were conducted for each cyclone with two configurations, namely, (i) a parent domain of 27-km resolution with a 9-km nest (27:9) with convection parameterization (CP) switched on in both 27-km and 9-km domains (9 km-CP) and (ii) a parent domain of 27-km resolution with inner 9-km and 3-km nests (27:9:3) with convective parameterization switched off in the 3-km domain [3-km microphysics parameterization (3 km-MP)]. All the simulations utilized the 0.5° resolution Global Forecasting System (GFS) data for initial and boundary conditions. Results show that the 9 km-CP produced relatively higher (lower) intensity during the early intensification phase (peak and decay phases) for all cyclones due to producing a higher (lower) thermal anomaly than 3 km-MP, indicating different impacts of parameterized convection and explicit convection in the respective phases. It was observed that the track and intensity differences between 9 km-CP and 3 km-MP were greatest in group-3 cyclones, followed by group-RI, group-2, and group-1 cyclones. The 3 km-MP produced large improvements (20–55% at 24–96 h) for group-3, group-RI, and group-2 cyclones due to net effects of stronger convergence and a heating/thermal anomaly by explicitly resolving the cloud and convection processes. Overall, the 3 km-MP improved the intensity prediction by 3%, 19%, 25%, and 53% at 24, 48, 72, and 96 h, respectively, over 9 km-CP. The 3 km-MP also improved the structure predictions in terms of radial and tangential winds, storm sizes, and cloud bands in better agreement with observations. It also improved the track predictions by roughly 36%, 16%, 34%, and 16% at forecast intervals of 24, 48, 72, and 96 h, respectively, over 9 km-CP. Overall, the explicit simulations (3 km-MP) show improvements over coarse simulations using parameterized convection (9 km-CP) by better resolving the inflow, convergence, and updrafts.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Dr. A.K. Bhaduri, Director, IGCAR for his keen interest and support throughout the study. The first author is grateful to HBNI and DAE for providing the research fellowship and facilities to conduct the study. the authors thank the India Meteorological Department for the open access of the best track parameters and DWR images used in the study. The authors are also thankful to Colorado State University for providing the CIRA multi-satellite images. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which greatly helped to improve the manuscript.
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Mohan, P.R., Srinivas, C.V. & Venkatraman, B. Convection-Permitting WRF Simulations of Tropical Cyclones Over the North Indian Ocean. Pure Appl. Geophys. 179, 1333–1363 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-02985-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-02985-2