scholarly journals Nowcasting and real-time monitoring of heavy rainfall events inducing flash-floods: an application to Phlegraean area (Central-Southern Italy)

2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 861-889
Author(s):  
Alberto Fortelli ◽  
Nicola Scafetta ◽  
Adriano Mazzarella
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Real Time Monitoring ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

Weather circulation patterns as precursor of heavy rainfall events: an application to Sicily, Italy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Cipolla ◽  
Antonio Francipane ◽  
Leonardo Noto
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Atmospheric Circulation ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Flash Floods ◽  
Convective Precipitation ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Circulation Patterns ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events ◽  
Economic Damages

<p>Since the impacts of climate change on the environment have been constantly rising over the last decades, scientists have paid much attention to understanding the effects of this phenomenon. Climate change leads to different kinds of extremes, such as heavy rainfall events, characterized by short duration and high intensity, and drought, which can cause the problem of water scarcity over a certain area. These types of extreme events cause several damages for the affected areas since they can result in loss of human lives and economic damages. In particular, heavy rainfall events, which are often associated with convective precipitation because of their characteristics, may result in flash floods, especially when they hit small catchments with low times of concentration, thus causing economic damages and, more relevantly, human lives losses.</p><p>The increasing occurrence of heavy rainfall events in many areas of Europe, also in Italy, over the last few years, has contributed to raising the importance of understanding which factors could be recognized as drivers of these events. In this perspective, it is possible to identify in atmospheric circulation one of the causes of severe rainfall events occurrence since some air fluxes, generated from certain schemes of atmospheric circulation, could lead to the accumulation of moisture within a certain volume of the atmosphere, hence to the occurrence of rainfall.</p><p>Since even the Sicily (Italy) has been experimenting heavy rainfall events and consequent flash floods and urban floods in the last years, this work aims to find out a relationship between some weather circulation patterns, developed by the UK Met Office, and the rainfall Annual MAXima (AMAX) for the Sicily, recorded by the rain gauge network of Autorità di Bacino - Regione Siciliana. The possible connection between AMAX and WPs has been investigated in order to define some specific schemes of atmospheric circulation that are responsible for leading to the occurrence of AMAX in Sicily. In order to do this, a database containing the AMAX of all the available gauges for the Sicily has been used. A distinction between AMAX occurred in summer and winter season and their related WPs has been performed as well, with the goal to understand the possible influence of WPs on the summer and winter AMAX. Furthermore, in order to distinguish convective from stratiform AMAX, some analyses on reanalysis data, namely the CAPE and the Vertical Integral of Divergence of Moisture Flux (VIDMF), have been done.</p>

Subseasonal forecasts for humanitarian decision-making in Kenya: understanding forecast skill and the latest results from the S2S ForPAc real-time pilot study.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave MacLeod ◽  
Mary Kilavi ◽  
Emmah Mwangi ◽  
George Otieno ◽  
Richard Graham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Lead Time ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Forecast Skill ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

<p>In 2018 the long rains season in Kenya (March-May) was the wettest ever recorded. The country experienced several multi-day heavy rainfall episodes, leading to dam collapse, land and mudslides. 186 people died due to flooding and 300,000 were left displaced. </p><p>The Kenya Meteorological Department issued several advisories during the season that warned of heavy rainfall events a few days before their occurrence. Ahead of this no warnings were given.</p><p>However subseasonal forecasts gave strong indications of the heaviest rainfall episodes, several weeks in advance. With this extra lead time, preparedness actions may have been taken in order to reduce flood risk and save lives. </p><p>To this end, the ForPAc project (Toward Forecast-Based Preparedness Action) has been working in partnerships across Kenya and the UK to evaluate and build trust in subseasonal forecasts, and explore preparedness actions which could be taken in response. Most recently ForPAc has been granted access to real-time subseasonal data as part of phase two of the S2S pilot.</p><p>In this presentation we will first show analysis of the S2S hindcasts over East Africa, demonstrating the relatively high levels of subseasonal forecast skill and linking this to a strong MJO teleconnection that models capture relatively well.</p><p>In the second part we will describe work with stakeholders to co-design forecast products derived from the S2S data, concluding with a report on the forecasts for the ongoing 2020 long rains season and an evaluation of the way in which these have influenced disaster preparedness.</p>

scholarly journals Heavy Precipitation Systems in Calabria Region (Southern Italy): High-Resolution Observed Rainfall and Large-Scale Atmospheric Pattern Analysis

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aldo Greco ◽  
Davide Luciano De Luca ◽  
Elenio Avolio
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Early Warning Systems ◽  
Reanalysis Dataset ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Calabria Region ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

An in-depth analysis of historical heavy rainfall fields clearly constitutes an important aspect in many related topics: as examples, mesoscale models for early warning systems and the definition of design event scenarios can be improved, with the consequent upgrading in the prediction of induced phenomena (mainly floods and landslides) into specific areas of interest. With this goal, in this work the authors focused on Calabria region (southern Italy) and classified the main precipitation systems through the analysis of selected heavy rainfall events from high resolution rain gauge network time series. Moreover, the authors investigated the relationships among the selected events and the main synoptic atmospheric patterns derived by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 Reanalysis dataset, in order to assess the possible large-scale scenarios which can induce heavy rainfall events in the study area. The obtained results highlighted: (i) the importance of areal reduction factors, rainfall intensities and amounts in order to discriminate the investigated precipitations systems for the study area; (ii) the crucial role played by the position of the averaged low-pressure areas over the Mediterranean for the synoptic systems, and by low-level temperature for the convective systems.

scholarly journals Extreme Floods in the Eastern Part of Europe: Large-Scale Drivers and Associated Impacts

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1122
Author(s):  
Monica Ionita ◽  
Viorica Nagavciuc
Keyword(s):  
Water Vapor ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Vapor Transport ◽  
Water Vapor Transport ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Catchment Areas ◽  
Large Scale Atmospheric Circulation ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

The role of the large-scale atmospheric circulation in producing heavy rainfall events and floods in the eastern part of Europe, with a special focus on the Siret and Prut catchment areas (Romania), is analyzed in this study. Moreover, a detailed analysis of the socio-economic impacts of the most extreme flood events (e.g., July 2008, June–July 2010, and June 2020) is given. Analysis of the largest flood events indicates that the flood peaks have been preceded up to 6 days in advance by intrusions of high Potential Vorticity (PV) anomalies toward the southeastern part of Europe, persistent cut-off lows over the analyzed region, and increased water vapor transport over the catchment areas of Siret and Prut Rivers. The vertically integrated water vapor transport prior to the flood peak exceeds 300 kg m−1 s−1, leading to heavy rainfall events. We also show that the implementation of the Flood Management Plan in Romania had positive results during the 2020 flood event compared with the other flood events, when the authorities took several precaution measurements that mitigated in a better way the socio-economic impact and risks of the flood event. The results presented in this study offer new insights regarding the importance of large-scale atmospheric circulation and water vapor transport as drivers of extreme flooding in the eastern part of Europe and could lead to a better flood forecast and flood risk management.

scholarly journals Mesoscale Analysis of Heavy Rainfall Episodes from SoWMEX/TiMREX

2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 521-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Davis ◽  
Wen-Chau Lee
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Southwest Monsoon ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Mesoscale Analysis ◽  
Mesoscale Structure ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Moist Condition ◽  
Virtual Temperature ◽  
Convection Initiation ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

Abstract The authors analyze the mesoscale structure accompanying two multiday periods of heavy rainfall during the Southwest Monsoon Experiment and the Terrain-Induced Mesoscale Rainfall Experiment conducted over and near Taiwan during May and June 2008. Each period is about 5–6 days long with episodic heavy rainfall events within. These events are shown to correspond primarily to periods when well-defined frontal boundaries are established near the coast. The boundaries are typically 1 km deep or less and feature contrasts of virtual temperature of only 2°–3°C. Yet, owing to the extremely moist condition of the upstream conditionally unstable air, these boundaries appear to exert a profound influence on convection initiation or intensification near the coast. Furthermore, the boundaries, once established, are long lived, possibly reinforced through cool downdrafts and prolonged by the absence of diurnal heating over land in generally cloudy conditions. These boundaries are linked phenomenologically with coastal fronts that occur at higher latitudes.

scholarly journals An Improved Weighting Method of Time-Lag-Ensemble Averaging for Hourly Precipitation Forecasts and Its Application in a Typhoon-Induced Heavy Rainfall Event

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 875
Author(s):  
Li Zhou ◽  
Lin Xu ◽  
Mingcai Lan ◽  
Jingjing Chen
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Probability Of Detection ◽  
Precipitation Forecast ◽  
Ensemble Averaging ◽  
Weighting Method ◽  
Prediction Ability ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Hourly Precipitation ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

Heavy rainfall events often cause great societal and economic impacts. The prediction ability of traditional extrapolation techniques decreases rapidly with the increase in the lead time. Moreover, deficiencies of high-resolution numerical models and high-frequency data assimilation will increase the prediction uncertainty. To address these shortcomings, based on the hourly precipitation prediction of Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System-Cycle of Hourly Assimilation and Forecast (GRAPES-CHAF) and Shanghai Meteorological Service-WRF ADAS Rapid Refresh System (SMS-WARR), we present an improved weighting method of time-lag-ensemble averaging for hourly precipitation forecast which gives more weight to heavy rainfall and can quickly select the optimal ensemble members for forecasting. In addition, by using the cross-magnitude weight (CMW) method, mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient (CC), the verification results of hourly precipitation forecast for next six hours in Hunan Province during the 2019 typhoon Bailu case and heavy rainfall events from April to September in 2020 show that the revised forecast method can more accurately capture the characteristics of the hourly short-range precipitation forecast and improve the forecast accuracy and the probability of detection of heavy rainfall.

Diverse synoptic weather patterns of warm-season heavy rainfall events in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chanil Park ◽  
Seok-Woo Son ◽  
Joowan Kim ◽  
Eun-Chul Chang ◽  
Jung-Hoon Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Pacific ◽  
Moisture Transport ◽  
Heavy Rainfall ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Sea Level Pressure ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Weather Patterns ◽  
Synoptic Weather ◽  
Heavy Rainfall Events

AbstractThis study identifies diverse synoptic weather patterns of warm-season heavy rainfall events (HREs) in South Korea. The HREs not directly connected to tropical cyclones (TCs) (81.1%) are typically associated with a midlatitude cyclone from eastern China, the expanded North Pacific high and strong southwesterly moisture transport in between. They are frequent both in the first (early summer) and second rainy periods (late summer) with impacts on the south coast and west of the mountainous region. In contrast, the HREs resulting from TCs (18.9%) are caused by the synergetic interaction between the TC and meandering midlatitude flow, especially in the second rainy period. The strong south-southeasterly moisture transport makes the southern and eastern coastal regions prone to the TC-driven HREs. By applying a self-organizing map algorithm to the non-TC HREs, their surface weather patterns are further classified into six clusters. Clusters 1 and 3 exhibit frontal boundary between the low and high with differing relative strengths. Clusters 2 and 5 feature an extratropical cyclone migrating from eastern China under different background sea-level pressure patterns. Cluster 4 is characterized by the expanded North Pacific high with no organized negative sea-level pressure anomaly, and cluster 6 displays a development of a moisture pathway between the continental and oceanic highs. Each cluster exhibits a distinct spatio-temporal occurrence distribution. The result provides useful guidance for predicting the HREs by depicting important factors to be differently considered depending on their synoptic categorization.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document