Enhancing quantitative precipitation estimation of NWP model with
fundamental meteorological variables and Transformer based deep learning
model
Abstract
Quantitative precipitation forecasting in numerical weather prediction
(NWP) models rely on physical parameterization schemes. However, these
schemes involve considerable uncertainties due to limited knowledge of
the mechanisms involved in the precipitating process, ultimately leading
to degraded precipitation forecasting skills. To address this issue, our
study proposes using a Swin-Transformer based deep learning (DL) model
to quantitatively map fundamental variables solved by NWP models to
precipitation maps. Our results show that the DL model effectively
extracts features over meteorological variables, leading to improved
precipitation skill scores of 21.7%,
60.5%, and 45.5% for light rain,
moderate rain, and heavy rain, respectively, on an hourly basis. We also
evaluate two case studies under different driven synoptic conditions and
show promising results in estimating heavy precipitation during strong
convective precipitation events. Overall, the proposed DL model can
provide a vital reference for capturing precipitation-triggering
mechanisms and enhancing precipitation forecasting skills. Additionally,
we discuss the sensitivities of the fundamental meteorological variables
used in this study, training strategies, and performance limitations.