An assimilation test of Doppler radar reflectivity and radial velocity from different height layers in improving the WRF rainfall forecasts

Hydrological forecasts require high-resolution and accurate rainfall information, which is one of the most difficult variables to be captured by the mesoscale Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems. Radar data assimilation is an effective method for improving rainfall forecasts by correcting the initial and lateral boundary conditions of the NWP system. The aim of this study is to explore an efficient way of utilizing the Doppler radar observations for data assimilation, which is implemented by exploring the effect of assimilating radar data from different height layers on the improvement of the NWP rainfall accuracy. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used for numerical rainfall forecast in the Zijingguan catchment located in the “Jing-Jin-Ji” (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) Region of Northern China, and the three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3-DVar) technique is adopted to assimilate the radar data. Radar reflectivity and radial velocity are assimilated separately and jointly. Each type of radar data is divided into seven data sets according to the height layers: (1) < 500 m, (2) < 1000 m, (3) < 2000 m, (4) 500-1000 m, (5) 1000-2000 m, (6) > 2000 m, and (7) all layers. The results show that radar reflectivity assimilation leads to better results than radial velocity assimilation. The accuracy of the forecasted rainfall deteriorates with the rise of the height of the assimilated radar reflectivity. The same results can be found when assimilating radar reflectivity and radial velocity at the same time. The conclusions of this study provide a reference for efficient assimilation of the radar data in improving the NWP rainfall products.