Sea breeze thunderstorms in the eastern Iberian Peninsula. Neighborhood verification of HIRLAM and HARMONIE precipitation forecasts

In this study we investigated sea breeze thunderstorms with intense convective activity (i.e., heavy rainfall, hail and gusty winds) that occurred over the eastern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and were missed by the operational HIRLAM model. We used two grid-spacing setups (5.0. km and 2.5. km) of the hydrostatic HIRLAM model, and the non-hydrostatic spectral HARMONIE suite (2.5. km), to simulate isolated convection associated with sea breezes. The overall aim is to estimate the ability of these three experimental setups, in particular the HARMONIE model as the forthcoming operational numerical weather prediction in most European Weather Services, to correctly simulate convective precipitation…