Impact of Assimilating High-Resolution Atmospheric Motion Vectors on Convective Scale Short-Term Forecasts: 2. Assimilation Experiments of GOES-16 Satellite Derived Winds

Abstract

Building on the results from the observing system simulation experiments in Part I, this study investigates the impact of assimilating Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16) derived atmospheric motion vector (AMV) data on the convective scale numerical weather prediction (NWP) by using the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) three-dimensional variational (3DVAR) data assimilation (DA) system. The benefit of the AMV DA for short-term severe weather forecast is assessed with three high-impact weather events that occurred in spring 2018 and 2019 over the Great Plains of the United States. The results show that the wind and equivalent potential temperature fields associated with the storm environment and the nearby ongoing convection are improved by the AMV DA, which yields better simulation of the boundaries and the subsequent forecasts of storm evolution. For the quasi-linear or mesoscale convective system, the assimilation of AMVs has a positive impact on the 0–3 h forecasts of composite reflectivity and accumulated precipitation in terms of the shape, location, and magnitude. However, the AMV DA has difficulty in capturing the sharp moisture gradient associated with the dryline and mostly underpredicts the associated scattered storms.