MPAS | WRF | precipitation calculation

Precipitation variables

• rainc: accumulated total cumulus precipitation
• rainsh: accumulated shallow cumulus precipitation
• rainnc: accumulated total grid scale precipitation
• snownc: accumulated total grid scale snow and ice
• graupelnc: accumulated total grid scale graupel
• hailnc: accumulated total grid scale hail

• rainc: rainfall from a cumulus scheme (mm) from cu_physics/cumulus scheme precipitation
• rainnc: rainfall from an explicit scheme (mm) from microphysics

• Convective Precip ---> rainc
• Non-convective Precip ---> rainnc

• WRF precipitation calculation | Apr 4, 2023
  • Total accumulated precipitation is always "rainc + rainnc". Other items are included in rainc and rainnc calculation.
  • In fact, shallow convection produces little precipitation.
• rainc, rainnc | 2024
  • Rainc is cumulative convective precipitation
  • Rainnc is cumulative non convective precipitation
• wrf rainfall visualisation | 2024
  • rainc and rainnc are convective and large-scale precipitation, respectively.
  • Both are accumulated variables, which means they are accumulated from the beginning of the model run. Total precipitation is rainc + rainnc.

cumulative variables

The variables RAINC and RAINNC are cumulative variables. To get the values at any particular point in time, you would need to calculate that. For e.g. if you are interested in daily values for 2017-11-05,

• RAINC = RAINC (at time 2017-11-06_00:00:00) - RAINC (at time 2017-11-05_00:00:00).

Rainfall only (Liquid precipitation)

• phys/module_diag_trad_fields.F

! Total rainfall
    rain(i,j) =   rainc(i,j) + rainnc(i,j)
    ! Total liquid rainfall
    liqrain(i,j) =   rainc(i,j) + rainnc(i,j) - snownc(i,j) - graupelnc(i,j) - hailnc(i,j)