A New Framework for Evaluating Model Simulated Inland Tropical Cyclone
Wind Fields
Abstract
Though tropical cyclone (TC) models have been routinely evaluated
against track and intensity observations, little work has been performed
to validate modeled TC wind fields over land. In this paper, we present
a simple framework for evaluating simulated low-level inland winds with
in-situ observations and existing TC structure theory. The Automated
Surface Observing Systems, Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, and best
track data are used to generate a theory-driven wind profile that
reasonably represents the observed radial distribution of TC wind
speeds. We quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated the modeled inland
TC wind fields, and described the model performance with a set of simple
indicators. The framework was used to examine the performance of a
high-resolution two-way nested Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
model on recent U.S. landfalling TCs. Results demonstrate the capacity
of using this framework to assess the modeled TC low-level wind field in
the absence of dense inland observations.