Phase-Correcting Data Assimilation and Application to Storm-Scale Numerical Weather Prediction. Part I: Method Description and Simulation Testing

An objective method of determining and correcting phase or position errors in numerical weather prediction is described and tested in a radar data observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) addressing the forecasting of ongoing thunderstorms. Such phase or position errors are common in numerical forecasts at grid resolutions of 2-20 km (meso- scale). It is proposed that the process of correcting a numerical forecast field can be simplified if such errors are addressed directly. An objective method of determining the phase error in the forecast by searching for a field of shift vectors that minimizes a squared-error difference from high-resolution observations is described.