Simulating Environmental Conditions for Southwest United States Convective Dust Storms Using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model v4.1
Abstract
Dust aerosols can pose a significant detriment to public health, transportation, and tactical operations through reductions in air quality and visibility. Thus, accurate model forecasts of dust emission and transport are essential to decision makers. While a large number of studies have advanced the understanding and predictability of dust storms, the majority of existing literature considers dust production and forcing conditions of the underlying meteorology independently of each other. Our study works to-wards filling this research gap by inventorying dust-event case studies forced by convective activity in the Desert Southwest United States, simulating select representative case studies using several configurations of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, testing the sensitivity of forecasts to essential model parameters, and assessing overall forecast skill using variables essential to dust production and transport. We found our control configuration captured the initiation, evolution, and storm structure of a variety of convective features admirably well. Peak wind speeds were well represented, but we found that simulated events arrived up to 2 hours earlier or later than observed. Our results show that convective storms are highly sensitive to initialization time and initial conditions that can preemptively dry the atmosphere and suppress the growth of convective storms.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 05, 2022
- Accession Number
- AD1176215
Entities
People
- Alex Gallagher
- Sandra LeGrand
- Taylor S. Hodgdon
- Theodore Letcher
Organizations
- Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
- United States Army Corps of Engineers