Assimilation of no-precipitation observations from Doppler radar with 4DVar and its impact on summertime convective event prediction

No-precipitation reflectivity observations from Doppler radar contain valuable information on areas lacking precipitation; however, they are often ignored in four-dimensional variational (4DVar) radar data assimilation (DA). This study incorporated a neighborhood-based scheme to assimilate no-precipitation observations as a mechanism to suppress spurious convection. The impact of the scheme on convective forecasting using 4DVar was evaluated by comparing the performance of experiments with and without assimilation (ExpCTL) using eight diverse storm cases that occurred over the central United States during summer 2016. Three no-precipitation assimilation experiments with different neighborhood radiuses of 10 (ExpR10), 30 (ExpR30), and 50 km (ExpR50) were conducted to examine the sensitivity of the scheme to neighborhood size. Results indicated that all the no-precipitation assimilation experiments significantly improved quantitative precipitation forecast skill with large reduction of the bias and the false alarm ratio from ExpCTL, as well as improving representation of the intensity and coverage of the precipitation. The horizontal wind, temperature, and water vapor were also improved, especially the latter. The scheme was found sensitive to neighborhood size and greater benefit was found in ExpR30 in comparison with ExpR10 and ExpR50. Analysis revealed that ExpR30 reduced low-level cooling and mid-level warming corresponding to decreased water vapor in areas of overpredicted and false precipitation, and it was more effective in conserving the total water content balance during cycled radar DA. The findings of this study could provide reference information for assimilation of no-precipitation observations into the Weather Research and Forecasting model using 4DVar, which would be valuable for severe weather prediction.