General

The focus of our forecast model is on 48 – 24 h and is developed for the Dobrogea region in Romania. The daily wind forecast is based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The WRF model is a state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction model, designed for operational forecasting as well as for atmospheric research needs.

Model set-up

The Dobrogea region has a simple topographical structure and lies on the Black Sea coast (click here for more details). The most important effects that need to be considered in order to capture the main atmospheric flow patterns are the land-sea contrast and the steering effect of the Carpathians.

Thus, the Carpathians need to be considered in a reasonably high resolution and the vicinity to the coast line requires a relatively high resolution in order to capture the land–sea difference. A nested model simulation is suitable to fulfil both requirements: a coarse domain that includes the Carpathians and a smaller inner domain with a higher resolution in order to have a more precise description of the coast line. The model has the following 3 domains:

The results of the outer domain are used as boundary values for the next inner domain. Land-sea differences cause modifications of the vertical wind profile. These changes are important for the wind forecast at hub height. The ability to reproduce the changes is affected by the turbulence parameterization and the vertical resolution. The current forecasts are using 8 levels in the lowest 1000 m of the atmosphere.
 

Model run

The wind forecast model is run once per day. Initial and boundary values are taken from the Global Forecast System (GFS). GFS results are prescribed at the lateral boundaries of the outermost domain. The simulation is performed for a period of 60 hours, starting at 12 UTC the previous day. The actual model run is available daily from around 8am (UTC+1).

Display

Here you can find the actual wind prediction. Displayed is a horizontal cross section of hourly wind speed at 50m, 80 m and 100 m height. Also available are predicted time series of wind speed and direction for x positions (mast measurement network) within the target region.