EOMF-08. Coupling RRFS to a NWM configuration of WRF-Hydro and Evaluating Warm Season Convective Forecasts

Abstract
Warm season convection across the Contiguous United States initiates at small spatial scales (<5 km) and weak large-scale dynamical forcing, and is sensitive to land-surface energy, moisture, and radiation (EMR) flux partitioning. While convective-allowing models such as the operational High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) have high-resolution treatment of topography, land use and land cover, they have simple treatment of land surface hydrologic processes that are often important to governing surface EMR flux partitioning and resulting precipitation. The next generation atmospheric model, the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS), intends to include more advanced Earth modeling; in particular more robust land-atmosphere interactions. Current research and development to couple the 3-km RRFS to a 1-km National Water Model configuration of the WRF-Hydro hydrological model is underway to provide a more thorough treatment of many of these surface hydrologic processes. This poster will provide details on the model configuration, code validation tests, and a July 2021 case study with the new 2-way coupled modeling system. We compare precipitation and model land surface EMR fields to an uncoupled control, the baseline operational HRRR, and available observations.