Impact of Megha-Tropiques SAPHIR radiance assimilation on the simulation of tropical cyclones over Bay of Bengal

Impact of SAPHIR radiance assimilation on the simulation of tropical cyclones over Indian region has been investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Three cyclones that formed over Bay of Bengal have been considered in the present study. Assimilation methodology used here is the three dimensional variational (3DVar) scheme within the WRF model. With the initial and boundary conditions from Global Forecasting System (GFS) analyses from the National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), a control run (CTRL) without assimilation of any data and a 3DVar run with the assimilation of SAPHIR radiance have been performed. Both model simulations have been compared with the observations from India Meteorological Department (IMD), Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM), and analysis fields from GFS. Detailed analysis reveals that, the SAPHIR radiance assimilation has led to significant improvement in the simulation of all the three cyclones in terms of cyclone track, intensity, accumulated rainfall. The simulation of warm core structure and relative vorticity profile of each cyclone by 3DVar run are found to be more closer to GFS analyses, when compared with the CTRL run.