Verification of temperature, wind and precipitation fields for the high-resolution WRF NMM model over the complex terrain of Montenegro

Background: The necessity of setting up high-resolution models is essential to timely forecast dangerous meteorological phenomena.

Objective: This study presents a verification of the numerical Weather Research and Forecasting non-hydrostatic Mesoscale Model (WRF NMM) for weather prediction using the High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster over the complex relief of Montenegro.

Methods: Verification was performed comparing WRF NMM predicted values and measured values for temperature, wind and precipitation for six Montenegrin weather stations in a five-year period using statistical parameters. The difficult task of adjusting the model over the complex Montenegrin terrain is caused by a rapid altitude change in in the coastal area, numerous karst fields, basins, river valleys and canyons, large areas of artificial lakes on a relatively small terrain.

Results: Based on the obtained verification results, the results of the model vary during time of day, the season of the year, the altitude of the station for which the model results were verified, as well as the surrounding relief for them. The results show the best performance in the central region and show deviations for some metrological measures in some periods of the year.

Conclusion: This study can give recommendations on how to adapt a numerical model to a real situation in order to produce better weather forecast for the public.