The current work assesses the impact of surface hydrologic processes on 1) local surface energy budgets during the NAM throughout Arizona and 2) the spectral behavior of diurnally driven NAM convection. The goal of this work is to evaluate the impacts that surface runoff and shallow subsurface flow, as depicted in WRF-Hydro, have on surface–atmosphere interactions and convection in a coupled atmospheric simulation. In this environment, diurnal convection is impacted by precipitation recycling from the land surface. In the present study, both the uncoupled WRF (WRF-ARW) and otherwise identical WRF-Hydro model are executed for the 20 summertime North American monsoon (NAM) seasons in semiarid central Arizona. One such model is the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional atmospheric model that can be coupled to the WRF-Hydro hydrologic model. These hydrological models can account for the impacts of the overland flow and subsurface flow components of the hydrologic cycle and account for the impact of lateral flow on moisture redistribution at the land surface.

Recent advances in high-performance computing and development of convection-permitting regional-scale atmospheric models combined with high-resolution hydrologic models have made modeling of surface–atmosphere interactions feasible for the scientific community. Evidence for surface and atmosphere coupling is corroborated in both modeling and observation-based field experiments.

Flow on effects environment