SIMULATION EXPERIMENT OF TROPICAL CYCLONE MOCHA (2023) AND ASSOCIATED STORM SURGE USING DIFFERENT PHYSICS OPTIONS OF WRF

In May 2023, Cyclone Mocha marked its place in history as the second strongest tropical cyclone (TC) to make landfall in the Indian Ocean. The core of our research delves into the intricacies of Mocha’s modeling, highlighting the importance of accurate wind speed and sea level pressure data for enhancing the fidelity of storm surge models. This study concentrated on the impact of physics options in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF; Skamarock et al. 2008) on TC and storm surge simulation accuracy. Physics options are crucial for parameterizing sub-grid scale effects, which significantly influence TC characteristics and behavior. Given the inherent uncertainty these options introduce in TC forecasting, they are indispensable in accurately predicting storm surges. This research aimed to identify how varying physics options in the WRF model affect the prediction accuracy of Mocha and storm surge.