Multiscale weather forecasting sensitivities to urban characteristics and atmospheric conditions during a cold front passage over the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex

Sensitivities of microscale weather modeling to atmospheric conditions and urban layout are investigated utilizing a combination of automated surface observing systems (ASOS) data, 1-km mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP), and 5-m nested large-eddy simulation (LES) modeled conditions. The 1-km mesoscale predictions in analysis mode satisfactorily reproduce the observed spatiotemporal evolution of the frontal boundary in terms of wind speed, wind direction, and temperature. The 5-m nested LES simulations follow the large-scale forcing trends while improving wind speed predictions due to explicitly resolving turbulence and building interactions. Moreover, 5-min averaged nested LES results reveal improved temporal variability particularly during the stronger wind and turbulence post-frontal conditions. The skill of the 1-km mesoscale NWP model prediction is compared to coarse-grained LES fields. Probability distributions extracted from the 5-m nested LES predictions exhibit the largest sensitivity to the contrasting meteorological conditions. In contrast, cumulative distributions of TKE additionally expose a marked dependency on the unique distribution of building heights, urban density and clustering in a given area. For the first time, an ensemble forecast methodological design at building-resolving grid spacing is explored. A larger microscale ensemble spread is found for TKE than for wind speed, decreasing with height and modulated by weather conditions. • We demonstrate the ability of a multi-scale LES modeling system to realistically simulate a complex cold front weather event. • The 5-m nested LES simulations follow the large-scale forcing trends while improving wind speed (and turbulence) predictions. • Coarse-graining of the LES results is used to evaluate 1-km mesoscale wind and turbulence predictions in urban environments. • PDFs exhibit larger sensitivity to contrasting weather conditions, while CDFs of TKE expose a dependency on specific urban features. • A methodological design for ensemble forecast at building-resolving LES grid spacing is explored for the first time.