Assessment of Typhoon Precipitation Forecasts Based on Topographic Factors

Abstract

For this paper, a new global atmospheric model (Global-to-Regional Integrated forecast SysTem; GRIST) with improved sub-grid scale orographic parameterization was verified and assessed, with an emphasis on the precipitation caused by typhoons. Four typical typhoon cases were selected for the verification of the model. The results indicate that, compared to the control experiments, the sensitivity experiments consistently simulated the trends in the three-hour cumulative precipitation changes and the high-value regions of total precipitation better. However, the improved experiments only had an ameliorating effect on the cumulative precipitation modelling biases for Typhoon LEKIMA and Typhoon HAGUPIT, not all of them. Precipitation bias is smaller on flat land than that on mountainous land, but the precipitation bias on windward/leeward slopes depends on the typhoon case. Precipitation modelling accuracy varies considerably between flat and mountainous terrain but very little between windward and leeward slopes. The precipitation simulation is poor for all terrains, with large precipitation thresholds in three typhoon cases, but for Typhoon HOTA, after improving the terrain, the model has the ability to forecast the heavy rainfall scenarios of the mountainous terrain.

Keywords

• typhoon precipitation
• forecast skill
• model evaluation
• topography