scholarly journals East coast lows and extratropical transition of tropical cyclones, structures producing severe events and their comparison with mature tropical cyclones

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 229
Author(s):  
Jeff Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
East Coast ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Heavy Rain ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Extratropical Cyclones ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The Us ◽  
Warm Region

Examination of events occurring over the last 53 years in the Australian Region have revealed in the minds of forecasters a common pattern in the development of severe extratropical cyclones which have affected the sub-tropical and temperate East Coast. To evaluate this theory 20 years of data were systematically examined and showed that this was true. To represent these many cases nine such events which delivered the largest impacts over the 53 years were chosen for study. These extratropical cyclones formed downstream of a tropopause undulation which can be easily identified as a warm region at the 200 hPa-level and the formation zone was in a region of heavy rain embedded in a region of warm air advection at 700 hPa. There were hardly any exceptions to this general rule, and one that occurred is presented and was also one of the most rapidly developing systems. This pattern is then evaluated against tropical cyclone events which move in the Australasian sub tropics and three different scenarios are described and compared with a mature severe tropical cyclone which intensified as it moved into the Australia sub tropics. Hurricane Sandy due to its devastating effect on the US sub-tropics in 2012 is examined as a benchmark case whose impact could affect the Australasian sub tropics in the future as sea levels rise with higher density populations.

scholarly journals Economic damages from Hurricane Sandy attributable to sea level rise caused by anthropogenic climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin H. Strauss ◽  
Philip M. Orton ◽  
Klaus Bittermann ◽  
Maya K. Buchanan ◽  
Daniel M. Gilford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
East Coast ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Economic Damage ◽  
Sea Levels

AbstractIn 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States, creating widespread coastal flooding and over $60 billion in reported economic damage. The potential influence of climate change on the storm itself has been debated, but sea level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change more clearly contributed to damages. To quantify this effect, here we simulate water levels and damage both as they occurred and as they would have occurred across a range of lower sea levels corresponding to different estimates of attributable sea level rise. We find that approximately $8.1B ($4.7B–$14.0B, 5th–95th percentiles) of Sandy’s damages are attributable to climate-mediated anthropogenic sea level rise, as is extension of the flood area to affect 71 (40–131) thousand additional people. The same general approach demonstrated here may be applied to impact assessments for other past and future coastal storms.

Spatial variations of North Atlantic landfalling tropical cyclone wind speed decay over the continental United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Jie Zhu ◽  
Jennifer M. Collins ◽  
Philip J. Klotzbach
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Wind Speed ◽  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Spatial Variations ◽  
Decay Model ◽  
Weak Intensity ◽  
Landfalling Tropical Cyclones

AbstractUnderstanding tropical cyclone wind speed decay during the post-landfall stage is critical for inland hazard preparation. This paper examines the spatial variation of wind speed decay of tropical cyclones over the continental United States. We find that tropical cyclones making landfall over the Gulf Coast decay faster within the first 24 hours after landfall than those making landfall over the Atlantic East Coast. The variation of the decay rate over the Gulf Coast remains larger than that over the Atlantic East Coast for tropical cyclones that had made landfall more than 24 hours prior. Besides an average weaker tropical cyclone landfall intensity, the near-parallel trajectory and the proximity of storms to the coastline also help to explain the slower post-landfall wind speed decay for Atlantic East Coast landfalling tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclones crossing the Florida peninsula only slowly weaken after landfall, with an average of less than 20% post-landfall wind speed drop while transiting the state. The existence of these spatial variations also brings into question the utility of a uniform wind decay model. While weak intensity decay over the Florida peninsula is well estimated by the uniform wind decay model, the error from the uniform wind decay model increases with tropical cyclones making direct landfall more parallel to the Atlantic East Coast. The underestimation of inland wind speed by the uniform wind decay model found over the western Gulf Coast brings attention to the role of land-air interactions in the decay of inland tropical cyclones.

Compound impact of rainfall, tidal level and storm surge on flood risk from tropical cyclones in the coastal area of shanghai

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanqing Xu
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Joint Probability ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Tidal Level ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The Impact

<p>Catastrophic flooding resulting from extreme tropical cyclones has occurred more frequently and drawn great attention in recent years in China. Coastal cities are particularly vulnerable to flood under multivariable conditions, such as heavy precipitation, high sea levels, and storms surge. In coastal areas, floods caused by rainstorms and storm surges have been one of the most costly and devastating natural hazards in coastal regions. Extreme precipitation and storm tide are both inducing factors of flooding and therefore their joint probability would be critical to determine the flooding risk. Usually, extreme events such as tidal level, storm surges, precipitation occur jointly, leading to compound flood events with significantly higher hazards compared to the sum of the single extreme events. The purpose of this study is to improve our understanding of multiple drivers to compound flooding in shanghai. The Wind Enhance Scheme (WES) model characterized by Holland model is devised to generate wind "spiderweb" both for historical (1949-2018) and future (2031-2060, 2069-2098) tropical cyclones. The tidal level and storm surge model based on Delft3D-FLOW is employed with an unstructured grid to simulate the change of water level. For precipitation, maximum value between tropical cyclone events is selected. Following this, multivariate Copula model would be employed to compare the change of joint probability between tidal level, storm surge and heavy precipitation under climate change, taking into account sea-level rise and land subsidence. Finally, the impact of tropical cyclone on the joint risk of tidal, storm surge and heavy precipitation is investigated. </p>

United States East Coast Storm Surge and Cyclone track Characteristics: Differences and Similarities for Extratropical Cyclones and Hurricanes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Booth ◽  
Harald Rieder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Propagation Speed ◽  
The United States ◽  
Return Level ◽  
Extratropical Cyclones ◽  
Storm Events ◽  
Cyclone Track ◽  
The Us

<p>Storm surge on the east coast of the United States can be generated by hurricanes or extratropical cyclones (ETCs). Understanding the differences in the impacts of these two phenomena is important for improving strategies to mitigate the damage created. As such, this work examines the magnitude, spatial footprint, and paths of hurricanes and ETCs that caused strong surge along the east coast of the US. Lagrangian cyclone track information, for hurricanes and ETCs, is used to associate surge events with individual storms. First, hurricane influence is examined using ranked surged events per site. The fraction of hurricanes among storms associated with surge decreases from 20-60% for the top 10 events to 10-30% for the top 50 events, and a clear latitudinal gradient of hurricane influence emerges for larger sets of events. Second, surge on larger spatial domains is examined by focusing on storms that cause exceedance of the probabilistic 1-year surge return level at multiple stations. Results show that if the strongest events, in terms of surge amplitude and spatial extent, are considered hurricanes are most likely to create the hazards. However, when slightly less strong events that still impact multiple areas during the storm life cycle are considered, the relative importance of hurricanes shrinks as that of ETCs grows.</p><p>Next we examine the details of the tracks of the storm events that cause strong surge events. We find that paths for ETCs causing multi-site surge at individual segments of the US east coast pass very close to the regions of impact. We find that the paths of hurricanes that cause the strongest multi-site surge are often influenced by nearby large-scale circulation patterns. We also examine the relationship between the storm surge time-evolution and the propagation speed of the low-pressure center of the storm events. For extratropical cyclones, slower moving events have weaker cyclonic winds which offsets the enhanced surge associated with the longer duration of the cyclone influence on surge. For hurricanes, there is less correlation between propagation speed and cyclonic wind motion, meaning slower moving events can still generate very strong winds. However, slow moving events still don’t cause the absolute largest events.</p><p> </p>

Validation Schemes for Tropical Cyclone Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts: Evaluation of Operational Models for U.S. Landfalling Cases

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 726-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Marchok ◽  
Robert Rogers ◽  
Robert Tuleya
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Forecast Error ◽  
Heavy Rain ◽  
Track Forecast ◽  
The Core ◽  
Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts ◽  
Operational Models ◽  
Landfalling Tropical Cyclones ◽  
The Impact

Abstract A scheme for validating quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) for landfalling tropical cyclones is developed and presented here. This scheme takes advantage of the unique characteristics of tropical cyclone rainfall by evaluating the skill of rainfall forecasts in three attributes: the ability to match observed rainfall patterns, the ability to match the mean value and volume of observed rainfall, and the ability to produce the extreme amounts often observed in tropical cyclones. For some of these characteristics, track-relative analyses are employed that help to reduce the impact of model track forecast error on QPF skill. These characteristics are evaluated for storm-total rainfall forecasts of all U.S. landfalling tropical cyclones from 1998 to 2004 by the NCEP operational models, that is, the Global Forecast System (GFS), the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) hurricane model, and the North American Mesoscale (NAM) model, as well as the benchmark Rainfall Climatology and Persistence (R-CLIPER) model. Compared to R-CLIPER, all of the numerical models showed comparable or greater skill for all of the attributes. The GFS performed the best of all of the models for each of the categories. The GFDL had a bias of predicting too much heavy rain, especially in the core of the tropical cyclones, while the NAM predicted too little of the heavy rain. The R-CLIPER performed well near the track of the core, but it predicted much too little rain at large distances from the track. Whereas a primary determinant of tropical cyclone QPF errors is track forecast error, possible physical causes of track-relative differences lie with the physical parameterizations and initialization schemes for each of the models. This validation scheme can be used to identify model limitations and biases and guide future efforts toward model development and improvement.

Outer Tropical Cyclone Rainbands Associated with Typhoon Matmo (2014)

2020 ◽  
Vol 148 (7) ◽  
pp. 2935-2952
Author(s):  
Cheng-Ku Yu ◽  
Lin-Wen Cheng ◽  
Chun-Chieh Wu ◽  
Chia-Lun Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Heavy Rain ◽  
Squall Line ◽  
Gradient Force ◽  
Pressure Gradient Force ◽  
Commercial Aircraft ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Stormy Weather

Abstract On 23 July 2014, a commercial aircraft (GE222) crashed near the Ma-Gong Airport on Penghu Island off the southwestern coast of Taiwan as it struggled to land in the stormy weather that was caused by the outer tropical cyclone rainbands (OTCRs) of Typhoon Matmo. This study aims to document the detailed aspects of airflow and precipitation of OTCRs through high-resolution radar and surface observations and to identify how these observed structures contribute to aviation weather hazards. Analyses indicate that the weather at the airport was significantly influenced by the passage of three OTCRs (R1, R2, and R3), and these rainbands share common characteristics of squall-line-like airflow and precipitation structures. As GE222 descended to approach the runway and flew immediately behind and roughly parallel to the leading edge of R3, the aircraft encountered the heaviest precipitation of the rainband and the prominent crosswind that was a manifestation of the rear-to-front flow generated locally by the rainband. The heavy rain–induced poor visibility and the occurrence of strong crosswinds were primary weather hazards affecting this flight event. Momentum budget analyses suggest that the frontward pressure gradient force provided by the near-surface, convectively generated mesohigh played a major role in driving the low-level rear-to-front flow inside the band. The results from the present study imply that closely monitoring convective activities in the outer regions of tropical cyclones and their potential transformation into squall-line-like storms is crucial to complement the routine aviation alert of severe weather under the influence of tropical cyclones.

Beyond Hurricane Sandy: What Might the Future Hold for Tropical Cyclones in the North Atlantic?

2014 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 1450007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radley M. Horton ◽  
Jiping Liu
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
The North ◽  
The Future ◽  
The North Atlantic

Coastal communities are beginning to understand that sea level rise is projected to dramatically increase the frequency of coastal flooding. However, deep uncertainty remains about how tropical cyclones may change in the future. The North Atlantic has historically been responsible for the majority of global tropical cyclone economic losses, with Hurricane Sandy's approximately USD$70 billion price tag providing a recent example. The North Atlantic has experienced an upward trend in both total tropical cyclones (maximum sustained winds > 18 m/s) and major hurricanes (maximum sustained winds > 50 m/s) in recent decades. While it remains unclear how much of this trend is related to anthropogenic warming, and how tropical cyclone risk may change in the future, the balance of evidence suggests that the strongest hurricanes may become more frequent and intense in the future, and that rainfall associated with tropical cyclones may increase as well. These projections, along with sea level rise and demographic trends, suggest vulnerability to tropical cyclones will increase in the future, thus requiring major coastal adaptation initiatives.

The Great Influenza

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
East Coast ◽  
World History ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Surgeon General ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of Disease ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines evidence principally from the US that the Great Influenza provoked profiteering by landlords, undertakers, vendors of fruit, pharmacists, and doctors, but shows that such complaints were rare and confined mostly to large cities on the East Coast. It then investigates anti-social advice and repressive decrees on the part of municipalities, backed by advice from the US Surgeon General and prominent physicians attacking ‘spitters, coughers, and sneezers’, which included state and municipal ordinances against kissing and even ‘big talkers’. It then surveys legislation on compulsory and recommended mask wearing. Yet this chapter finds no protest or collective violence against the diseased victims or any other ‘others’ suspected of disseminating the virus. Despite physicians’ and lawmakers’ encouragement of anti-social behaviour, mass volunteerism and abnegation instead unfolded to an extent never before witnessed in the world history of disease.

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