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Otsuka, M., M. Kunii, H. Seko, K. Shimoji, M. Hayashi, K. Yamashita, 2015: Assimilation experiments of MTSAT rapid scan atmospheric motion vectors on a heavy rainfall event. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 93, 459-475.
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2015-030

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Highlights:

• The impact of atmospheric motion vectors derived from MTSAT-1R 5-min rapid scan imagery (RS-AMV) on numerical forecasting of a heavy rainfall near a stationary front was investigated by conducting assimilation experiments with the JMA's operational non-hydrostatic model with 4-dimensional variational data assimilation (JNoVA).
• Assimilation experiments covering a heavy rainfall event were conducted by using different lengths of assimilation time slot and time intervals of spatial thinning for the assimilation of the RS-AMV (Table 2).
• The assimilation of RS-AMVs caused the initial wind fields to enhance upper-level divergence and low-level convergence around the front (Fig. 12), and as a result, the forecast of the rainfall amount was increased near the front and the verification scores were slightly improved over the control experiment in the early forecast hours (Fig. 11).