Changes in Typhoon Regional Heavy Precipitation Events over China from 1960 to 2018

In earlier studies,objective techniques have been used to determine the contribution of tropical cyclones to precipitation(TCP)in a region,where the Tropical cyclone Precipitation Event(TPE)and the Regional Heavy Precipitation Events(RHPEs)are defined and investigated.In this study,TPE and RHPEs are combined to determine the Typhoon Regional Heavy Precipitation Events(TRHPEs),which is employed to evaluate the contribution of tropical cyclones to regional extreme precipitation events.Based on the Objective Identification Technique for Regional Extreme Events(OITREE)and the Objective Synoptic Analysis Technique(OSAT)to define TPE,temporal and spatial overlap indices are developed to identify the combined events as TRHPE.With daily precipitation data and TC best-track data over the western North Pacific from 1960 to 2018,86 TRHPEs have been identified.TRHPEs contribute as much as 20%of the RHPEs,but100%of events with extreme individual precipitation intensities.The major TRHPEs continued for approximately a week after tropical cyclone landfall,indicating a role of post landfall precipitation.The frequency and extreme intensity of TRHPEs display increasing trends,consistent with an observed positive trend in the mean intensity of TPEs as measured by the number of daily station precipitation observations exceeding 100 mm and 250 mm.More frequent landfalling Southeast and South China TCs induced more serious impacts in coastal areas in the Southeast and the South during 1990-2018 than1960-89.The roles of cyclone translation speed and"shifts"in cyclone tracks are examined as possible explanations for the temporal trends.

SPATIO-TEMPORAL VARIATION CHARACTERISTICS OF EXTREMELY HEAVY PRECIPITATION FREQUENCY OVER SOUTH CHINA IN THE LAST 50 YEARS

This paper comprehensively studies the spatio-temporal characteristics of the frequency of extremely heavy precipitation events over South China by using the daily precipitation data of 110 stations during 1961 to 2008 and the extremely heavy precipitation thresholds determined for different stations by REOF, trend coefficients, linear trend, Mann-Kendall test and variance analysis. The results are shown as follows. The frequency distribution of extremely heavy precipitation is high in the middle of South China and low in the Guangdong coast and western Guangxi. There are three spatial distribution types of extremely heavy precipitation in South China. The consistent anomaly distribution is the main type. Distribution reversed between the east and the west and between the south and the north is also an important type. Extremely heavy precipitation events in South China mainly occurred in the summer-half of the year. Their frequency during this time accounts for 83.7% of the total frequency. In the 1960 s and 1980 s, extremely heavy precipitation events were less frequent while having an increasing trend from the late 1980 s. Their climatological tendency rates decrease in the central and rise in the other areas of South China, and on average the mean series also shows an upward but insignificant trend at all of the stations. South China's frequency of extremely heavy precipitation events can be divided into six major areas and each of them shows a different inter-annual trend and three of the representative stations experience abrupt changes by showing remarkable increases in terms of Mann-Kendall tests.

Analysis of Pseudomomentum Wave-Activity Density in a Heavy Rainfall Event in East China

Taking into account moisture in virtue of general potential temperature,the author derive a three-dimensional(3D) pseudomomentum wave-activity relation for the moist atmosphere from the primitive equations in Cartesian coordinates using the Momentum-Casimir method.Since the wave-activity relation is constructed in an ageostrophic and non-hydrostatic dynamical framework,it may be applicable to diagnosing the evolution and propagation of mesoscale systems leading to heavy rainfall.The theoretical analysis shows that,besides the local change of wave-activity flux divergence and source or sink,the wave-activity relation includes two additional forcing terms.The first is the zonal gradient of difference between general potential temperature and potential temperature perturbations,and the second is the covariance of the solenoid and gradient of water vapor,denoting the direct influence of moisture on wave-activity density.The wave-activity density was applied to a heavy precipitation event occurring in the Jianghuai region of China.The calculation showed that the wave-activity density was consistent with 6-h accumulated precipitation observations,in terms of both spatial distribution and temporal tendency.This suggested that the disturbance represented by wave-activity density was closely related to the heavy precipitation.Although the wave-activity flux divergence and the covariance of the solenoid and gradient of water vapor made the primary contribution to the local change of wave-activity density,the covariance was more remarkable.The zonal gradient of difference between general potential temperature and potential temperature perturbations made a weaker contribution to the waveactivity density.

Application of an Improved Analog-Based Heavy Precipitation Forecast Model to the Yangtze–Huai River Valley and Its Performance in June–July 2020

Precipitation extremes,such as the record-breaking Meiyu characterized by frequent occurrences of rainstorms that resulted in severe flooding over the Yangtze-Huai River valley(YHRV)in June-July 2020,are always attracting considerable interest,highlighting the importance of improving the forecast accuracy at the medium-to-long range.To elevate the skill in forecasting heavy precipitation events(HPEs)with both long and short durations,the Key Influential Systems Based Analog Model(KISAM)was further improved and brought into operational application in 2020.Verification and comparison of this newly adapted analog model and ensemble mean forecasts from the ECMWF at lead times of up to 15 days were carried out for the identified 16 HPEs over the YHRV in June-July 2020.The results demonstrate that KISAM is advantageous over ECMWF ensemble mean for forecasts of heavy precipitation≥25 mm day-1 at the medium-to-long(6-15-day)lead times,based on the traditional dichotomous metrics.At short lead times,ECMWF ensemble mean outperforms KISAM due largely to the low false alarm rates(FARs)benefited from an underestimation of the frequency of heavy precipitation.However,at the medium-to-long forecast range,the large fraction of misses induced by the high degree of underforecasting overwhelms the fairly good FARs in the ECMWF ensemble mean,which partly explains its inferiority to KISAM in terms of the threat score.Further assessment on forecasts of the latitudinal location of accumulated heavy precipitation indicates that smaller displacement errors also account for a part of the better performance of KISAM at lead times of 8-12 days.