The effect of a giant wind farm on precipitation in a regional climate model

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is employed as a nested regional climate model to study the effect of a giant wind farm on warm-season precipitation in the eastern two-thirds of the USA. The boundary conditions for WRF are supplied by 62 years of NCEP/NCAR (National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research) global reanalysis. In the model, the presence of a mid-west wind farm, either giant or small, can have an enormous impact on the weather and the amount of precipitation for one season, which is consistent with the known sensitivity of long-term weather forecasts to initial conditions. The effect on climate is less strong. In the average precipitation of 62 warm seasons, there is a statistically significant 1.0% enhancement of precipitation in a multi-state area surrounding and to the south-east of the wind farm.