The impact of wind shear on mid-latitude convection in convection-allowing WRF simulations.

Abstract:

Since pioneering studies by Rotunno, Klemp, and Weisman in the 1980s, wind shear has been known to have an important impact on convective storms, controlling mode, strength, and longevity. Despite this knowledge, the impact of wind shear on convection has largely been ignored at the scale of climate models due to a lack of observations. In leiu of these observations, convection-allowing simulations can be used to understand these relationships. Although these simulations are computationally expensive, several institutions maintain large databases of simulations run over the contiguous US in support of the NOAA Hazardous Weather Tesbed (HWT).

Multiple years of daily simulations from NSSL and NCEP run in support of this project will be used to understand the relationship between wind shear and convective properties such updraft strength and area. It will be shown that in environments with weak instability, wind shear decreases convective area and strength for areas the size of climate model grids. When sufficient instability is present, however, both of these properties increase with wind shear. Although many of these results are consistent between the NSSL/NCEP simulations, some differences exist. These differences will also be discussed.