A divided meso-beta scale convectively explicit simulation

Abstract

A convective event over the Gulf of Mexico is used to address the question of how well nonhydrostratic convectively explicit models initialized by imposing a 'bubble', typically a temperature perturbation, on a horizontally homogeneous stratification background field, respond to usually subtle variations on meso-beta scale thermodynamic structure. Whether a meso-beta scale convective precipitation pattern can be produced numerically by performing a group of convectively explicit simulations is studied. Storm-scale low-level forcing is found to be important for producing desired convective precipitation patterns. The additional numerical approaches that must be incorporated to understand and forecast meso-beta scale weather events are considered.