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These patterns are shown to be related to both cyclogenesis over North Africa and rainfall over the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the frequency of dust mobilization over the continent and of dust outbreaks over the sea are strongly related to the climatology of depressions affecting North Africa. Precipitations appear to be an important factor explaining both the seasonal east-west shift in transport location and the south-north gradients of dust concentrations over the Mediterranean.

This study examines the extent to which the floods in the Negev Desert, an area that constitutes the southern half of Israel, are not the outcome of purely local weather conditions but are, rather, the result of distinct synoptic-scale events. This was done through compiling and analysing a hydro-climatological database of all the major floods in the Negev, and then categorizing them manually into synoptic types that cause the major floods.The type analysis is based on the US National Meteorological Center data sets with 2.5°× 2.5°resolution analysed by GrADS. Data were compiled and studied for 52 floods for the period 1965-94, with peak discharge above the magnitude of 5 year recurrence intervals (RI > 5 years) in at least one drainage basin.Distinct extreme synoptic patterns are indeed associated with 42 of the 52 floods. They were grouped into four synoptic types, two of which were associated with 37 events: (a) an active Red Sea trough, defined as a surface trough extending from East Africa through the Red Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean, accompanied by a pronounced trough at the 500 hPa level over eastern Egypt: (b) a Syrian low, defined as a well-developed Mediterranean cyclone accompanied by a pronounced upper-level trough, both located over Syria. Each of the four synoptic types has its own evolution course, and a unique seasonal and spatial distribution of its associated flooded basins.These findings imply that the major floods in the Negev can be considered as signatures of exceptional synoptic-scale evolutions, and that major floods reflect extreme climatic events. Our results indicate that it is possible to use a set of dynamic and thermodynamic variables for predicting the occurrence and location of major flash floods.

The Dead Sea is a terminal lake of one of the largest hydrological systems in the Levant and may thus be viewed as a large rain gauge for the region. Variations of its level are indicative of the climate variations in the region. Here, we present the decadal- to centennial-resolution Holocene lake-level curve of the Dead Sea. Then we determine the regional hydroclimatology that affected level variations. To achieve this goal we compare modern natural lake-level variations and instrumental rainfall records and quantify the hydrology relative to lake-level rise, fall, or stability. To quantify that relationship under natural conditions, rainfall data pre-dating the artificial Dead Sea level drop since the 1960s are used. In this respect, Jerusalem station offers the longest uninterrupted pre-1960s rainfall record and Jerusalem rains serve as an adequate proxy for the Dead Sea headwaters rainfall. Principal component analysis indicates that temporal variations of annual precipitation in all stations in Israel north of the current 200 mm yr−1 average isohyet during 1940–1990 are largely synchronous and in phase (∼70% of the total variance explained by PC1). This station also represents well northern Jordan and the area all the way to Beirut, Lebanon, especially during extreme drought and wet spells. We (a) determine the modern, and propose the past regional hydrology and Eastern Mediterranean (EM) climatology that affected the severity and length of droughts/wet spells associated with multiyear episodes of Dead Sea level falls/rises and (b) determine that EM cyclone tracks were different in average number and latitude in wet and dry years in Jerusalem. The mean composite sea level pressure and 500-mb height anomalies indicate that the potential causes for wet and dry episodes span the entire EM and are rooted in the larger-scale northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation. We also identified remarkably close association (within radiocarbon resolution) between climatic changes in the Levant, reflected by level changes, and culture shifts in this region.

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