Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Dyer, Jamie

Committee Member

Mercer, Andrew

Committee Member

Brown, Mike

Date of Degree

8-12-2016

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Professional Meteorology/Climatology

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to simulate warm-season mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) to determine whether modeled atmospheric variables are capable of discriminating between derecho formation and intensity. Fifty total events are selected with half being derecho-producing MCSs and half being non-derecho producing MCSs. WRF is used to model each event with a high-resolution domain centered over the Midwest using the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) dataset as initial and boundary conditions. Atmospheric conditions downstream of the MCS damage path are compared to thresholds established by previous research to determine if the model accurately simulates the expected environment. The goal of the research is to gain insight into how well a high-resolution model can simulate the environment that is expected. It is anticipated that the model will be able to distinguish between environments associated with a derecho-producing MCS and a non-derecho MCS.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/21096

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