High resolution simulation of the severe precipitation event over the Saguenay, Quebec region in July 1996

A high resolution regional simulation of the severe precipitation episode which gave rise to the floods in the Saguenay, Quebec region during July 19-21, 1996 was performed using the Mesoscale Compressible Community Model (MC2). The model is first calibrated by comparing the simulated precipitation field with radar observations for an earlier precipitation event. The model is then applied without further tuning to the Saguenay episode. This simulation is initialized with the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) analyses at a resolution of 35 km. A one-way nested integration is next performed with a resolution of 10 km. The simulated precipitation field compares well with available station observations.