RELAMPAGO–Argentina WRF Forecasts¶
During the RELAMPAGO-CACTI field campaign (2018–2019), the Nesbitt group operated a real-time Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model system providing daily convective-scale forecasts over the Córdoba province of Argentina.
About the Forecasts¶
The real-time WRF forecasting system was developed and run by Steve Nesbitt's group at the University of Illinois to support operational decision-making during RELAMPAGO field operations. Forecasts were used by scientists and flight crews to identify optimal sampling targets for ground-based and airborne instruments.
- Model: WRF-ARW (Weather Research and Forecasting – Advanced Research WRF)
- Domain: Córdoba Province, Argentina and surroundings
- Focus: Convective initiation and evolution in the lee of the Andes
Code¶
The initialization and run scripts used for the real-time WRF system are available on GitHub:
wrf-realtime — Code to initialize and run WPS and WRF for real-time RELAMPAGO forecasts.
About RELAMPAGO-CACTI¶
RELAMPAGO (Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations) was a joint NSF, DOE, NASA, and NOAA field campaign conducted in Córdoba, Argentina in November–December 2018, with a follow-on campaign in early 2019.
As Lead Principal Investigator, Steve Nesbitt coordinated 100+ scientists from 7 agencies across the United States and Argentina to study:
- Extreme convective storms in the lee of the Andes
- Orographic forcing of deep convection
- Cloud microphysics and precipitation processes
- Lightning and electrification in subtropical storms
Total budget: $25M+ across all partner agencies.