The impact of lightning and radar reflectivity factor data assimilation on the very short-term rainfall forecasts of RAMS@ISAC: application to two case studies in Italy

The first case study was missed by several operational forecasts, including that performed by the model used in this paper, while the Livorno case was partially predicted by operational models.

In this paper, we study the impact of lightning and radar reflectivity factor data assimilation on the precipitation VSF (very short-term forecast, 3 h in this study) for two severe weather events that occurred in Italy. The first case refers to a moderate and localized rainfall over central Italy that occurred on 16 September 2017. The second case occurred on 9 and 10 September 2017 and was very intense and caused damages in several geographical areas, especially in Livorno (Tuscany) where nine people died.