Impacts of Mountain Topography and Background Flow Conditions on the Predictability of Thermally Induced Thunderstorms and the Associated Error Growth

Abstract

Thermally induced thunderstorm simulations were conducted with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model in an idealized configuration to investigate the associated error growth and predictability. We conducted identical twin experiments with different topography and background winds to assess the impacts of these factors. The results showed that mountain topography restrains error growth at the early stage of convection development. This topographic effect is sensitive to mountain geometry and background winds: it was more noticeable in cases with higher and narrower mountains and difficult to see without background wind. The topographic effect and its sensitivity resulted from the different natures of convection initiation. However, the topographic effect became less apparent when moist convection continued growing and triggered rapid error growth. The predictability of thunderstorms is then limited at the timing after the convective activity reached its maximum. A smaller initial error or starting a simulation at a later time did not break this timing of predictability limit. Mountain topography also limitedly affected the timing of the maximum convective activity and the predictability limit. In contrast, background flows changed the convection evolution and the following predictability. The predictability limit assessed by rainfall suggested other aspects of the topographic effect. The domain-scale rainfall distribution and the intense accumulated rainfall can be adequately captured in the presence of mountains.