A Dynamical Initialization Scheme for Binary Tropical Cyclones

Abstract

his paper reports on a dynamical initialization scheme for binary vortices (BVDI) that was developed to improve the initial conditions supplied to the models used to forecast binary tropical cyclones (TCs). For binary TCs, one TC can be regarded as the environment for the other TC?s development. Based on the dynamical initialization scheme for a single vortex (SVDI), a specified multistep iteration of SVDI was introduced in the BVDI scheme to ensure that each TC develops under conditions of realistic binary vortices interaction during the 6-h cycle run. In the BVDI scheme, each TC is initialized twice within a continuously adjusted environmental flow. Four clusters of forecast simulations with different initial conditions were run for 11 pairs of binary TCs over the northwest Pacific. The forecasts of binary TCs by the BVDI scheme reduced the position and intensity errors associated with the forecast TCs by 35.2% and 56.6%, respectively, compared with those without initialization, and also performed better than the direct extension of the SVDI scheme to binary TCs. The representation of binary vortices interaction will need to be improved for initialization and future forecasts of binary TCs.