ALBERT

Description: A flood-producing heavy rainfall event occurred at the mountainous coastal region in the northeast of South Korea on 5–6 August 2018, subsequent to extreme heat waves, through a quasi-stationary mesoscale convective system (MCS). We analyzed the storm environment via a multi-data approach using high-resolution (1-km) simulations from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and in situ/satellite/radar observations. The brightness temperature, from the Advanced Himawari Imager water vapor band, and the composite radar reflectivity were used to identify characteristics of the MCS and associated precipitations. The following factors affected this back-building MCS: low-level convergence by the Korea easterlies (Kor’easterlies), carrying moist air into the coast; strong vertical wind shear, making the updraft tilted and sustained; coastal fronts and back-building convection bands, formed through interactions among the Kor’easterlies, cold pool outflows, and orography; mid-level advection of cold air and positive relative vorticity, enhancing vertical convection and potential instability; and vigorous updraft releasing potential instability. The pre-storm synoptic environment provided favorable conditions for storm development such as high moisture and temperature over the coastal area and adjacent sea, and enhancement of the Kor’easterlies by expansion of a surface high pressure system. Upper-level north-northwesterly winds prompted the MCS to propagate south-southeastward along the coastline.

Description: Ensemble data assimilation systems generally suffer from underestimated background error covariance that leads to a filter divergence problem—the analysis diverges from the natural state by ignoring the observation influence due to the diminished estimation of model uncertainty. To alleviate this problem, we have developed and implemented the stochastically perturbed hybrid physical–dynamical tendencies to the local ensemble transform Kalman filter in a global numerical weather prediction model—the Korean Integrated Model (KIM). This approach accounts for the model errors associated with computational representations of underlying partial differential equations and the imperfect physical parameterizations. The new stochastic perturbation hybrid tendencies scheme generally improved the background error covariances in regions where the ensemble spread was not sufficiently expressed by the control experiment that used an additive inflation and the relaxation to prior spread method.

Description: Energy consumption in Bangladesh increased for economic, industrial, and digitalization growth. Reductions in conventional sources such as natural gas (54%) and coal (5.6%) are calls to enhance renewable resources. This paper aims to investigate the atmospheric variables for potential wind zones and develop a statistical power-forecasting model. The study-site is Bangladesh, focusing on eight divisions across two regions. First, the southern zone includes Dhaka (Capital), Chittagong, Barishal, and Khulna. The northern regions are Rajshahi, Rangpur, Mymensingh, and Sylhet. This investigation illustrates wind (m/s) speeds at various heights (m) and analyzes the boundary layer height (BLH) from the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast reanalysis 5th generation (ERA5). The data is from a period of 40 years from 1979 to 2018, assessing with a climatic base of 20 years (1979 to 2000). The climatological analysis comprises trends, time series, anomalies, and linear correlations. The results for the wind speed (BLH) indicate that the weakest (lower) and strongest (higher) regions are Sylhet and Barishal, respectively. Based on power-curve relationships, a simple power predictive model (SPPM) is developed using global wind atlas (GWA) data (sample: 1100) to estimate the power density (W/m2) and found an accuracy of 0.918 and 0.892 for Exponential (EXP) and Polynomial (PN) with mean absolute percentage errors (MAPE) of 22.92 and 21.8%, respectively. For validation, SPPM also forecasts power incorporating historical observations for Chittagong and obtains correlations of 0.970 and 0.974 for EXP and PN with a MAPE of 10.26 and 7.69% individually. Furthermore, calculations for annual energy production reveal an average megawattage of 1748 and 1070 in the southern and northern regions, with an MAPE of 15.71 and 5.85% for EXP and PN models, except Sylhet. The SPPM’s predictability can be improved with observed wind speeds and turbine types. The research wishes to apply SPPM for estimating energy in operational power plants.