Evaluation of microphysical assumptions of the COSMO model using radar and rain gauge observations

The exact forecast of precipitation is a challenge. New microphysics formulations were introduced recently into the COSMO model in order to improve the precipitation forecast. An important modification was the change from the autoconversion and accretion scheme following the Kessler (1969) formulation to the Seifert and Beheng (2001) scheme. The other main modification was implemented in the snow parameterisation by replacing the constant intercept parameter to a temperature dependent intercept parameter. These microphysics modifications are evaluated in detail in three case studies (one stratiform and two convective cases) by comparing the modelled and observed reflectivity and precipitation data. Comparisons to weather radar reflectivity data show that especially light to moderate precipitation forecast (< 20 dB) is improved. For the evaluation of the modelled precipitation, weather radar and rain gauge data are combined in order to get spatially high resolution data of high accuracy. For the quality analysis, the new error measure SAL (analysis of structure, amplitude and location) is used. The results show that the new microphysics formulations improve the precipitation amplitude forecast of up to 50% for the convective cases while the forecast for the stratiform case is not improved.