Improving heavy rainfall forecasts by assimilating surface precipitation in the convective scale model AROME: A case study of the Mediterranean event of November 4, 2017

Abstract

Abstract The ability of precipitation assimilation is assessed in a convective scale model in order to improve the precipitation forecast for a Mediterranean heavy rain event that took place on November 4, 2017. The proposed assimilation method is based on a two‐step approach. First, one‐dimensional variational (1D‐Var) assimilation is applied on hourly accumulated precipitation to retrieve temperature and specific humidity profiles. These retrieved profiles are then combined in relative humidity profiles before being assimilated into the AROME (Application of Research to Operational at MEsoscale) 3D‐Var system. Three experiments are run for this case study. The results show that precipitation assimilation has a positive impact on both moisture analysis and the forecast of dynamic fields. A comparison of 24 hr‐accumulated precipitation forecasts with precipitation analysis from radar and gauge data (ANTILOPE) demonstrates the ability of rain assimilation to improve convective precipitation forecasts. A statistical evaluation against rain gauges indicates better scores due to the additional moisture information given by the precipitation assimilation.

Keywords

• 1D‐Var retrieval
• data assimilation
• radar–gauge precipitation
• West Mediterranean event