Numerical simulations of heavy rainfall over central Korea on 21 September 2010 using the WRF model

On 21 September 2010, heavy rainfall with a local maximum of 259 mm d⁻¹ occurred near Seoul, South Korea. We examined the ability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in reproducing this disastrous rainfall event and identified the role of two physical processes: planetary boundary layer (PBL) and microphysics (MPS) processes. The WRF model was forced by 6-hourly National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Final analysis (FNL) data for 36 hours form 1200 UTC 20 to 0000 UTC 22 September 2010. Twenty-five experiments were performed, consisting of five different PBL schemes—Yonsei University (YSU), Mellor-Yamada-Janjic (MYJ), Quasi Normal Scale Elimination (QNSE), Bougeault and Lacarrere (BouLac), and University of Washington (UW)—and five different MPS schemes—WRF Single-Moment 6-class (WSM6), Goddard, Thompson, Milbrandt 2-moments, and Morrison 2-moments. As expected, there was a specific combination of MPS and PBL schemes that showed good skill in forecasting the precipitation. However, there was no specific PBL or MPS scheme that outperformed the others in all aspects. The experiments with the UW PBL or Thompson MPS scheme showed a relatively small amount of precipitation. Analyses form the sensitivity experiments confirmed that the spatial distribution of the simulated precipitation was dominated by the PBL processes, whereas the MPS processes determined the amount of rainfall. It was also found that the temporal evolution of the precipitation was influenced more by the PBL processes than by the MPS processes.