Analysis of predicted and observed accumulated convective precipitation in the area with frequent split storms

Abstract

Convective clouds generate extreme rainfall events and flash floods in small areas with both large spatial and temporal variability. For this reason, the monitoring of the total accumulated precipitation fields at the surface with rain gauges and meteorological radars has both strengths and weakness. Alternatively, a numerical cloud model may be a useful tool to simulate convective precipitation for various analyses and predictions. The main objective of this paper is to show that the cloud-resolving model reproduces well the accumulated convective precipitation obtained from the rain gauge network data in the area with frequent split storms. We perform comparisons between observations and model samples of the areal accumulated convective precipitation for a 15-year period over treated area. Twenty-seven convective events have been selected. Statistical analyses reveal that the model areal accumulated convective precipitation closely match their observed values with a correlation coefficient of 0.80. © Author(s) 2011.