RESEARCH ARTICLE Simulation of the atmospheric parameters during passage of a tropical storm over the South China Sea: a comparison with MetOcean buoy and ERA-Interim data Sivaprasad P 1 | Azizan Abu Samah 1 | C. A Babu 2 | Yue Fang 3 | Mohd Fadzil Firdzaus Mohd Nor 1 | Sheeba Nettukandy Chenoli 4 | Wee Cheah 1 | Muhammad Yunus Ahmad Mazuki 1 1 Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India 3 Center for Ocean and Climate Research, First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao, China 4 Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Correspondence Sivaprasad P, Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur-50603, Malaysia. Email: savimarine@yahoo.com Abstract The accuracy of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model derived meteorological fields during the passage of a tropical storm, Pabuk, over the southern South China Sea is investigated. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ ERA-Interim data were also used for comparison. Data from a MetOcean buoy which captured tropical storm Pabuk were used to evaluate the accuracy of the WRF model. The period of study was from January 1, 2019 to January 5, 2019. Simulated parameters (surface temperature, wind speed and pressure) showed agreement with the buoy data before and after passage of the tropical storm. In contrast, model output shows differences from observations during the passage of the storm near 0600 UTC on January 3, 2019. Overall, surface pressure was simulated with a maximum correlation of 0.93 while the wind speed showed a mini- mum correlation of 0.76. The surface temperature was simulated with a cor- relation of 0.78. Weaker correlations arise due to differences in simulated and observed parameters during the storm. During the storm, model esti- mates overestimated the buoy wind speed and pressure data. The results show the inaccuracy of the simulation due to the vigorous conditions preva- iling during the storm. The location of the centre of the storm differing between the model and the ERA-Interim data could also contribute to the discrepancy of the WRF data. The MetOcean buoy provided a rare opportu- nity for validation of the WRF model during the storm over the under- studied shallow tropical South China Sea. KEYWORDS buoy, mesoscale modelling, simulation, tropical storm Received: 19 May 2019 Revised: 29 November 2019 Accepted: 1 February 2020 DOI: 10.1002/met.1895 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2020 The Authors. Meteorological Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society. Meteorol Appl. 2020;27:e1895. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/met 1 of 9 https://doi.org/10.1002/met.1895