NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE BRIG FLASH-FLOOD EVENT

Viviand, Jerome (Laboratoire d'Aerologie, UMR5560 CNRS, Toulouse, France)

Richard, Evelyne (same affiliation)

The meteorological situation of September 22-23, 1993, lead to a long period of strong precipitation over the Massif Central in France and over the southern slope of the Alpes, causing a very damaging flash flood in Brig, Switzerland.

This severe situation has been simulated with the non-hydrostatic Meso-NH model, recently developed at Laboratoire d'Aerologie and Meteo-France. A first set of simulations, carried out with a 30 km horizontal grid size will be presented. The focus will be put on the interaction between the upper-level jet dynamics and the circulations induced by the diabatic effects.

Further analysis have been performed with a higher resolution model centered over South-Eastern France. It will be shown how an explicit prediction of the ice hydrometeores improve the simulation in term of precipitation location and intensity.


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