Improvements of Procedures for Identifying and Classifying Heavy Rainfall Areas of Linear-Stationary Type

Abstract

The procedures for identifying and classifying heavy rainfall areas of linear-stationary type (LS-HRAs) from the distributions of radar/raingauge-analyzed precipitation amounts (RAP) were improved to extract "senjo-kousuitai" with elongated and stagnant characteristics that causes localized heavy rainfall in Japan. The improved procedures were verified based on subjective judgments ('certainty', 'doubtful', and 'suspect') whether LS-HRAs possess the characteristics of typical senjo-kousuitai. Criteria for excluding LS-HRAs judged to be 'suspect', mainly associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) and nonstationary mesoscale convective systems, were introduced to optimally extract senjokousuitai events. The criteria were determined by the distance between LS-HRAs and TC centers (DLT), the maximum total RAP of LS-HRA (total RAP), and the properties of each RAP distribution at every hour during the LS-HRA extraction period, e.g., DLT ≤ 500 km and total RAP < 200 mm. By applying these criteria, 372 senjo-kousuitai events were extracted from 452 LS-HRAs during the warm seasons (April-November) in 2009-Hirockawa and Kato, Improvements of Procedures for Identifying and Classifying LS-HRAs 2 2020, although approximately 35% of the LS-HRAs judged to be 'suspect' were not excluded. The criteria associated with TCs excluded them more effectively than the other factors. The improved procedures for extracting senjo-kousuitai events are expected to be used effectively for their statistical analyses.