Forecasting extreme weather events for Mendoza Argentina

SANTOS R.; NORTE F.; NAGARAJAN B.; ARANEO D. C.; SIMONELLI S.; BUSTOS C.

Helsinki

Conferencia; 7th European Conference on Severe Storms; 2013

European Severe Storms Laboratory

Mendoza is an Argentina province, which is prone to severe weather events such as hailstorms, Zonda winds (Chinook-type winds) and frost. In particular hailstorms are characterized by the production of large-size hail causing large economical losses due to crop and property damages. The forecast of the onset of convection represents still a challenge due to its localized occurrence and the proximity to the steep Andes Mountains. Numerical models of the atmosphere have improved the numeric representation of the atmospheric processes not only in an implicit way by using different parameterization schemes but also the explicit fashion by means of a high-resolution computational grid. Nevertheless the forecast of the deep convection remains still a challenge. Different causes might be attributable to this problem, such as the quality of the atmospheric initial conditions, model vertical and horizontal grid-spacing coordinates, among others. Forecast of convective weather events for Mendoza region has been carried out by using two numerical models namely the limited area model Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF) and the Global Environmental Multiscale Model (GEM). In the present work an exploratory study of a multi-model comparison on the initiation mechanisms of the deep convection stage is presented.