Blending of global and regional analyses with a spatial filter: Application to typhoon prediction over the western North Pacific Ocean

A blending method to merge the NCEP global analysis with the regional analysis from the WRF variational data assimilation system is implemented using a spatial filter for the purpose of initializing the Typhoon WRF (TWRF) Model, which has been in operation at Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau (CWB) since 2010. The blended analysis is weighted toward the NCEP global analysis for scales greater than the cutoff length of 1200 km, and is weighted toward the WRF regional analysis for length below that. TWRF forecast experiments on 19 typhoons from July to October 2013 over the western North Pacific Ocean show that the large-scale analysis from NCEP GFS is superior to that of the regional analysis, which significantly improves the typhoon track forecasts. On the other hand, the regional WRF analysis provides a well-developed typhoon structure and more accurately captures the influence of the Taiwan topography on the typhoon circulation. As a result, the blended analysis takes advantage of the large-scale analysis from the NCEP global analysis and the detailed mesoscale analysis from the regional WRF analysis. In additional to the improved track forecast, the blended analysis also provides more accurate rainfall forecasts for typhoons affecting Taiwan. Because of the improved performance, the blending method has been implemented in the CWB operational TWRF typhoon prediction system.