9 B . 3 Prediction of Convective Initiation and Storm Evolution on 12

1. Introduction During the warm season over the Southern Great Plains (SGP) of the United States, strong convective storms are responsible for a large portion of the annual rainfall. Accurate prediction of quantitative precipitation associated with these warm season systems has been a particularly elusive task (Fritsch and Carbone 2004). The prediction of the exact timing, location and intensity of convective initiation and the subsequent evolution of the convective systems are even more difficult. Such difficulties arise in part from the poor knowledge of four-dimensional water vapor distribution with high temporal and spatial variability, inadequate understanding of the convective initiation (CI) processes and the inability of typical numerical models to accurately represent important physical processes. To address some of these questions, the International H 2 O Project (IHOP_2002, Weckwerth et al. 2004) field experiment was carried out in the spring of 2002. Weckwerth and Parsons (2006) present a review on convective initiation, in particular, that by surface boundaries prevalent in the SGP environment. Wilson and Roberts (2006) systematically summarize all CI events and their evolution during the IHOP period, based on observational data. The ability of the operational 10-km Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) (Benjamin et al. 2004) in predicting these events is also briefly discussed. Xue and Martin (2006a; 2006b, hereafter XM06a and XM06b respectively or XM06 for both) present a