the primary goal of this research is to develop a mesoscale model capable of predicting regions of convective outbreak. the model is to be initialized by a simple soundings(s) and during the data assimilation period single doppler radar data are to be assimilated into the model fields. the model should be capable of producing forecasts of convective development on a mini-computer system. the model should cover al 100 km by 100 km domain with a minimum resolution of 5 km. the benchmark mini-computer system used for model development is the dec micro-vax ii. the basic model used for this study is the colorado state university regional atmospheric modeling system (rams). the overall features of rams are described in appendix a. in the following sections we describe the various versions of rams that have been developed for this project, the methods of four-dimensional assimilation of single doppler radar data, preliminary testing and evaluation procedures and results. we then describe the real data cases used to test the model, the methods of single doppler wind retrieval, and the results of testing the model in several cases. keywords: weather forecasting, mesoscale models, doppler radar winds, computer simulation models, convective cloud development. (sdw)