Summer rain fall duration and its diurnal cycle over the US Great Plains

Chen, Haoming; Zhou, Tianjun; Yu, Rucong; Li, Jian

doi:10.1002/joc.1806

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…It shows the climatic characteristics of the study region and is often regarded as the basis for the regional forecasting of MCSs including its precipitation. The FT of MCSs tracked in our study showed two peaks, similar to many midlatitude areas (Hamilton 1981;Dai 2001;Tian et al 2005;Chen et al 2009). The major peak was in the late afternoon and early evening around 1800 LST when strengthening CAPE occurs after 1400 LST (Dai 2001 …”

Section: B Distribution Of Cloud and Precipitation Parametersmentioning

confidence: 80%

Life Cycle Characteristics of MCSs in Middle East China Tracked by Geostationary Satellite and Precipitation Estimates

Ai¹,

Meng

et al. 2016

Monthly Weather Review

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By combining high temporal and spatial resolution Multifunctional Transport Satellite-1R (MTSAT-1R) infrared (IR) images and precipitation data from the Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH), this study tracked mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) from May to August in 2008 and 2009 in the middle of east China with an automatic tracking algorithm based on an areal overlapping methodology. This methodology is adjusted to include those MCSs with a relative weak intensity before formation. The unique advantage of combining high temporal and spatial resolution geostationary satellite brightness temperature images and the precipitation measurements for tracking MCSs is that the cloud-top height along with the coverage and the precipitation intensity can be well identified. Results showed that the MCSs formed most frequently in the southwest Henan Province and at the border of four provinces-Shandong, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu-which is east of the convergence zone near the terrain's edge. Locations of the highest cloud tops and of the heaviest precipitation rates did not always match. In addition, the MCSs in the study region tended to first reach the maximum precipitation rate, followed soon by the minimum brightness temperature, then the maximum associated precipitation area, and finally the maximum in system area.

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Section: B Distribution Of Cloud and Precipitation Parametersmentioning

confidence: 80%

Life Cycle Characteristics of MCSs in Middle East China Tracked by Geostationary Satellite and Precipitation Estimates

Ai¹,

Meng

et al. 2016

Monthly Weather Review

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“…The precipitation intensity was defined as the accumulated rainfall amount during each hour in which precipitation occurred (units: mm h −1 ). Following Yu et al (2007a) and Chen et al (2009), the duration of a rainfall event was defined as the number of hours from the beginning to the end of a rainfall event, and the corresponding intermittence should be no longer than 1 h. Thus, those rainfall events with intermittences greater than 1 h were regarded as two different rainfall events. Generally, precipitation decreases from more than 1800 mm year −1 in southeastern coastal areas to less than 50 mm year −1 in northwestern inlands (Qian and Lin, 3151 2005).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal characteristics of hourly precipitation over central eastern China during the warm season of 1982–2012

Sun

et al. 2015

Intl Journal of Climatology

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An intensive observational hourly precipitation data set from the China Meteorological Administration was utilized to investigate the changes in precipitation amount, frequency, intensity and duration over central eastern China during the warm season from 1982 to 2012. Ten intensity categories were used to reveal the contributions of precipitation frequency and intensity to the variation of rainfall amount. Moreover, the trends of frequency were also evaluated by comparing the respective contributions of the number and the duration of precipitation events. The main results are as follows: (1) The precipitation amount and intensity both decreased from southeast to northwest China, with two areas of high precipitation frequency located in southwestern and southeastern China. A region of high precipitation duration was found in central China and two lower duration regions were found in southern and northern China. (2) Generally, the extreme heavy rainfall showed a significant increasing trend while the light rainfall showed a significant decreasing trend over central eastern China. Nevertheless, the spatial unevenness was detected and in south and southeast China, significant increasing trends were found, whereas in northeast China and the Sichuan Basin, precipitation amounts showed a declining trend in each precipitation intensity category. (3) The trends of precipitation amount were mainly caused by the variations of precipitation frequency, which had a contribution rate of greater than 95%; however, for the heavy rainfall category, intensity changes were also very important. (4) Increased precipitation frequency was largely caused by the prolonged duration of rainfall events, whereas the decreased frequency was mainly due to the reduction in the number of rainfall events.

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“…The diurnal cycle of precipitation is another unique feature of the Great Plains climate, with the rainfall reaching a maximum diurnal peak overnight during the summer months [e.g., Wallace , ; Carbone et al ., ; Carbone and Tuttle , ; Surcel et al ., ; Berenguer et al ., ]. Its nocturnal precipitation peak comes from three primary sources: eastward propagation of storms initiated over the Rocky Mountains in the late afternoon [ Carbone et al ., ; Jiang et al ., ; Carbone and Tuttle , ; Chen et al ., ], a mountain‐plain solenoid circulation that suppresses day‐time convection and promotes nocturnal convection east of the Rocky Mountains [ Dai et al ., ; Carbone and Tuttle , ], and transportation of energetic air into the Plains by the nocturnal LLJ [ Higgins et al ., ; Carbone and Tuttle , ; Pu and Dickinson , ]. Simulation of this diurnal cycle is expected to be significantly improved through increasing horizontal resolution [ Lee et al ., ; Clark et al ., , ; Hohenegger et al ., ], especially with the use of CP modeling to explicitly represent convection [ Clark et al ., , ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of dynamical downscaling of Central Plains summer precipitation using a WRF‐based regional climate model at a convection‐permitting 4 km resolution

et al. 2016

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A significant challenge with dynamical downscaling of climate simulations is the ability to accurately represent convection and precipitation. The use of convection‐permitting resolutions avoids cumulus parameterization, which is known to be a large source of uncertainty. A regional climate model (RCM) based on the Weather Research and Forecasting model is configured with a 4 km grid spacing and applied to the U.S. Great Plains, a region characterized by many forms of weather and climate extremes. The 4 km RCM is evaluated by running it in a hindcast mode over the central U.S. region for a 10 year period, forced at the boundary by the 32 km North America Regional Reanalysis. The model is also run at a 25 km grid spacing, but with cumulus parameterization turned on for comparison. The 4 km run more successfully reproduces certain observed features of the Great Plains May‐through‐August precipitation. In particular, the magnitude of extreme precipitation and the diurnal cycle of precipitation over the Great Plains are better simulated. The 4 km run more realistically simulates the low‐level jet and related atmospheric circulations that transport and redistribute moisture from Gulf of Mexico. The convection‐permitting RCM may therefore produce better dynamical downscaling of future climate when nested within global model climate projections, especially for extreme precipitation magnitudes. The 4 km and 25 km simulations do share similar precipitation biases, including low biases over the central Great Plains and high biases over the Rockies. These biases appear linked to circulation biases in the simulations, but determining of the exact causes will require extensive, separate studies.

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Summer rain fall duration and its diurnal cycle over the US Great Plains

Cited by 26 publications

References 20 publications

Life Cycle Characteristics of MCSs in Middle East China Tracked by Geostationary Satellite and Precipitation Estimates

Life Cycle Characteristics of MCSs in Middle East China Tracked by Geostationary Satellite and Precipitation Estimates

Spatiotemporal characteristics of hourly precipitation over central eastern China during the warm season of 1982–2012

An evaluation of dynamical downscaling of Central Plains summer precipitation using a WRF‐based regional climate model at a convection‐permitting 4 km resolution

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