A case study of the impact of INSAT derived humidity profiles on precipitation forecast by limited area model

Abstract

The impact of humidity profiles estimated from INSAT digital IR cloud imagery data on initial moisture analysis in the IMD's operational limited area forecast system has been investigated. Method for assimilation of humidity profiles data as pseudo observations in the analysis scheme has been developed and implemented in the regional analysis scheme. Verification of humidity analysis with this data has shown substantial improvements in the moisture analysis over the data sparse region of tropics. Impact of the improved humidity analysis on model predicted rainfall is examined. The experiments show improved rainfall prediction.