Short range forecast verification of convective rain for a night-time event over the area of Cyprus

Night-time rain showers that occurred over the island of Cyprus and surrounding sea during the night of 11 to 12 February 2002 were investigated by means of two numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, one hydrostatic and the other one non-hydrostatic, and two kinds of radar, one ground-based located at Kykkos mountains in Cyprus and the other one on board the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. Verification of forecast precipitation was performed using a combination of radar precipitation estimates. Because of the short time used for verification and due to the mostly convective type of precipitation, it proved difficult to accurately forecast precipitation from the model. Different initial conditions were provided to the models, in an attempt to realize their impact on the prediction of precipitation. Even though skill scores of models are not very high, the non-hydrostatic model shows a better agreement with observations when the starting time of forecast is not too distant from the occurrence of the event.