Wei Yu
WRF-Hydro has been developed as a community model in the research of the land-atmosphere water cycle and flood events. It faces the challenge of forecast accuracy and flexibility to connect with different atmospheric and ocean models. Using the Mobile Bay as a test site, we introduce a distributed parameter adjustment function into the WRF-Hydro model framework to improve the model flexibility and performance. To reproduce the complicated situation in coastal flooding, the water level at the ocean side is introduced to WRF-Hydro as a boundary condition. Interactions among ocean, river, and land surface runoff are also considered. The coastal flooding from the model simulation includes the impact from the storm surge, river flooding, and heavy precipitation. The new model can be applied for either real-time forecast or flooding risk estimation to address current and future coastal flooding and inundation scenarios.
