Non-Hydrostatic, Unstructured-Adaptive-Grid, Forecast System for Thunderstorms

The objective of the project is to develop a highly integrated non- hydrostatic adaptive grid multiscale atmospheric simulation system which can generate convectively-explicit dynamical forecasts of thunderstorm-system initiation and evolution on a moderate-cost computer system. The innovative aspects of the system include: (1) the first use of an unstructured, adaptive grid in a meteorological model which permits a wide range of scales to be simulated within one grid domain in a computationally efficient manner; (2) the use of Doppler radar data to initialize a multiscale numerical prediction model; (3) the integration of the data ingestion, initialization procedures, simulation model and graphical display into a single package controlled by a user-friendly graphical interface; and (4) the use of a next generation moderate-cost computer workstation as the computational platform for the system. In Phase I, the feasibility of the system will be established by determining: (1) the ability of the system to simulate thunderstorm systems over central Florida; (2) the impact of the assimilation of NEXRAD Doppler radar data on short-term dynamical forecasts; and (3) if the computational power required to execute meaningful convective scale dynamical forecasts on a moderate-cost computer system is likely be available by the end of the Phase II project.