P2.19 an Investigation of Ihop Convective System Predictability Using a Matrix of 19 Wrf Members

A matrix of 19 WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting model) members was created using different combinations of physical schemes and run for eight IHOP (International H2O Project) convective cases. Cases were purposely selected to have significant rainfall observed and/or forecasted in the IHOP domain over the central United States. For each case, three different treatments of convection were used: the KainFritsch (KF) scheme (Kain and Fritsch 1992), the Betts-Miller-Janjic (BMJ) scheme (Betts 1986, Betts and Miller, 1986, Janjic 1994), and the use of no convective parameterization. For each of these three choices, three different microphysical schemes were used, Lin et al. (1983), NCEP-5 class, and Ferrier (Ferrier et al., 2002). Within these nine configurations, two different planetary boundary layer schemes were used, MRF (Troen and Mahrt, 1986) and Eta (Janjic 1994). This 18member matrix was supplemented with one additional member using the thermal diffusion surface physics scheme instead of the OSU scheme used for the full 18-member matrix. The 'control' run used the KF convective scheme, MRF PBL and NCEP class-5 microphysics.