[Eoas-seminar] Meteorology MS Defense for Ryan Remondelli, Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 3:30 PM, on Zoom 9102362819

[eoas-seminar at lists.fsu.edu]

Meteorology Seminar

Ryan Remondelli

M.S. Meteorology Candidate



Title:  SIMULATION OF HISTORICAL NEW ENGLAND TROPICAL CYCLONES: PREDICTABILITY IMPLICATIONS AND THEIR METEOROLOGICAL INSIGHT

Major Professor:  Dr. Robert Hart

Date: Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020                                   Time: 3:30 PM



Location: Zoom Meeting URL: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/91023626819

New England (NE) Tropical Cyclones (TCs) can produce significant damage, as well as provide increased forecast track and intensity complexity for forecasters. This is the result of the fact that these TCs recurve, often undergo extratropical transition, and are also forced via midlatitude dynamics that can act as a source of simulation track, structural, and intensity uncertainty. Consequently, not only do forecasters still struggle with forecasting NE TCs in real-time, but the region has had few such cases to quantify our ability to predict these storms in an age when they can now be explicitly resolved by Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP).

The track predictability of historical landfalling NE TCs was explored in this study through hindcasts of all landfalling NE TCs from 1900-2011. Utilizing version 4.1.1 of the Weather Forecast and Research Model Advanced Research WRF (WRF-ARW) with two outer fixed domains (27 km, 9km), as well as a vortex-following inner domain (3 km), 18 cases were examined beginning 7 days prior landfall. As a result of utilizing relatively coarse ERA-20C analysis as boundary and initial conditions, WRF's vortex removal and insertion scheme was employed to provide more plausible initial conditions for the hindcasts that can be provided by ERA-20C alone. The resulting total-track, cross-track, and along-track errors were calculated and then compared to various recent model track forecast errors as well as the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) official track forecast errors. The evolution of the synoptic-scale patterns leading up to the time of landfall for these 18 TCs was then investigated. The distance of the simulated TCs to their surrounding troughs and ridges was also investigated. An objective climatology of the nearby trough, ridge, and jet axis locations was determined and analyzed.

This analysis found that the average predictability of the historical NE TCs was low compared to a recent NHC climatology of forecast track errors. Lead times for when landfall projections occurred on long track Main Development Region storms were between 2 and 3 days before landfall.  These results argue that the predictability of NE TCs utilizing a state of the art WRF model remains limited, giving inadequate lead time for emergency managers and forecasters.



Shel McGuire
Florida State University
Academic Program Specialist
Department of Earth, Ocean, & Atmospheric Science
1011 Academic Way, 2019 EOA Building
Tallahassee, FL 32306
850-644-8582

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