title: Increasing vertical resolution in US models to improve track forecasts of Hurricane Joaquin with HWRF as an example.
abstract: The atmosphere-ocean coupled Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast model (HWRF) developed at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) is used as an example to illustrate the impact of model vertical resolution on track forecasts of tropical cyclones. A number of HWRF forecasting experiments were carried out at different vertical resolutions for Hurricane Joaquin, which occurred from September 27 to October 8, 2015, in the Atlantic Basin. The results show that the track prediction for Hurricane Joaquin is much more accurate with higher vertical resolution. The positive impacts of higher vertical resolution on hurricane track forecasts suggest that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/NCEP should upgrade both HWRF and the Global Forecast System to have more vertical levels.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Modeling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740; I.M. Systems Group, Inc., College Park, MD 20740; rlindzen@mit.edu banglin.zhang@noaa.gov.
authors.forename: Banglin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; rlindzen@mit.edu banglin.zhang@noaa.gov.
authors.forename: Richard S
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7520-7028
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Lindzen
authors.affiliation: Environmental Modeling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740.
authors.forename: Vijay
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tallapragada
authors.affiliation: Satellite Meteorology and Climatology Division, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740.
authors.forename: Fuzhong
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Environmental Modeling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740.
authors.forename: Qingfu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Environmental Modeling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740; I.M. Systems Group, Inc., College Park, MD 20740.
authors.forename: Jason A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Sippel
authors.affiliation: Environmental Modeling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740; I.M. Systems Group, Inc., College Park, MD 20740.
authors.forename: Zaizhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton, NJ 08540.
authors.forename: Morris A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Bender
keywords: HWRF; hurricane forecast; model development; vertical resolution