Rainfall Occurrence in the U.S. Warm Season: The Diurnal Cycle*

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 4132-4146 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. Carbone ◽  
J. D. Tuttle
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Rainfall Occurrence ◽  
Continental Divide ◽  
Central United States ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The diurnal occurrence of warm-season rainfall over the U.S. mainland is examined, particularly in light of forcings at multiple scales. The analysis is based on a radar dataset of 12-seasons duration covering the U.S. mainland from the Continental Divide eastward. The dataset resolves 2-km features at 15-min intervals, thus providing a detailed view of both large- and regional-scale diurnal patterns, as well as the statistics of events underlying these patterns. The results confirm recent findings with respect to the role of propagating rainfall systems and the high frequency at which these are excited by sensible heating over elevated terrain. Between the Rockies and the Appalachians, ∼60% of midsummer rainfall occurs in this manner. Most rainfall in the central United States is nocturnal and may be attributed to the following three main forcings: 1) the passage of eastward-propagating rainfall systems with origins near the Continental Divide at 105°W; 2) a nocturnal reversal of the mountain–plains solenoid, which is associated with widespread ascent over the plains; and 3) the transport of energetic air and moisture convergence by the Great Plains low-level jet. Other features of interest include effects of the Appalachians, semidiurnal signals of regional significance, and the impact of breezes along the Gulf of Mexico. A modest effort was put forth to discern signals associated with El Niño and the Southern Oscillation. While tendencies in precipitation patterns are observed, the record is too short to draw conclusions of general significance.

scholarly journals On the Link between Summer Dry Bias over the U.S. Great Plains and Seasonal Temperature Prediction Skill in a Dynamical Forecast System

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 1161-1172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantin Ardilouze ◽  
Lauriane Batté ◽  
Bertrand Decharme ◽  
Michel Déqué
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Seasonal Temperature ◽  
Forecast System ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Dry Bias

Abstract Soil moisture anomalies are expected to be a driver of summer predictability for the U.S. Great Plains since this region is prone to intense and year-to-year varying water and energy exchange between the land and the atmosphere. However, dynamical seasonal forecast systems struggle to deliver skillful summer temperature forecasts over that region, otherwise subject to a consistent warm-season dry bias in many climate models. This study proposes two techniques to mitigate the impact of this precipitation deficit on the modeled soil water content in a forecast system based on the CNRM-CM6-1 model. Both techniques lead to increased evapotranspiration during summer and reduced temperature and precipitation bias. However, only the technique based on a correction of the precipitation feeding the land surface throughout the forecast integration enables skillful summer prediction. Although this result cannot be generalized for other parts of the globe, it confirms the link between bias and skill over the U.S. Great Plains and pleads for continued efforts of the modeling community to tackle the summer bias affecting that region.

scholarly journals Initiation of Precipitation Episodes Relative to Elevated Terrain

2004 ◽  
Vol 61 (22) ◽  
pp. 2763-2769 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Ahijevych ◽  
C. A. Davis ◽  
R. E. Carbone ◽  
J. D. Tuttle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Plains ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Precipitation Frequency ◽  
Latitude Range ◽  
Continental Divide ◽  
Central United States ◽  
States Experience ◽  
East West

Abstract The western and central United States experience a pronounced diurnal cycle in rainfall during the warm season. Over the higher terrain west of 105°W, most precipitation occurs in the afternoon, whereas the central United States experiences more nocturnal events. This coherent phase transition between the Rocky Mountains and the U.S. Great Plains is well defined for all warm seasons between 1996 and 2003, provided that the rainfall observations are remapped relative to the elevated terrain in the western United States prior to north–south averaging. Due to the westward shift of the Continental Divide north of 42°N and its intersection with the warm season storm track for 2002, the diurnal coherence greatly improves after remapping the 2002 rainfall observations. This speaks to the long-range influence of orography on precipitation frequency and suggests that the primary east–west corridor of precipitation for an individual warm season intersects the cordillera over a fairly narrow latitude range.

Dryness over the U.S. Southwest, a Springboard for Cold Season Pacific SST to Influence Warm Season Drought over the U.S. Great Plains

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-76
Author(s):  
Yizhou Zhuang ◽  
Amir Erfanian ◽  
Rong Fu
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Summer Precipitation ◽  
Cold Season ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Moisture Condition ◽  
Moisture Advection ◽  
The U.S

AbstractAlthough the influence of sea surface temperature (SST) forcing and large-scale teleconnection on summer droughts over the U.S. Great Plains has been suggested for decades, the underlying mechanisms are still not fully understood. Here we show a significant correlation between low-level moisture condition over the U.S. Southwest in spring and rainfall variability over the Great Plains in summer. Such a connection is due to the strong influence of the Southwest dryness on the zonal moisture advection to the Great Plains from spring to summer. This advection is an important contributor for the moisture deficit during spring to early summer, and so can initiate warm season drought over the Great Plains. In other words, the well-documented influence of cold season Pacific SST on the Southwest rainfall in spring, and the influence of the latter on the zonal moisture advection to the Great Plains from spring to summer, allows the Pacific climate variability in winter and spring to explain over 35% of the variance of the summer precipitation over the Great Plains, more than that can be explained by the previous documented west Pacific–North America (WPNA) teleconnection forced by tropical Pacific SST in early summer. Thus, this remote land surface feedback due to the Southwest dryness can potentially improve the predictability of summer precipitation and drought onsets over the Great Plains.

IPCC’s Twentieth-Century Climate Simulations: Varied Representations of North American Hydroclimate Variability

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (16) ◽  
pp. 4041-4058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Ruiz-Barradas ◽  
Sumant Nigam
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North American ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Precipitation Variability ◽  
Model Version ◽  
Central United States ◽  
Hydroclimate Variability ◽  
Moisture Fluxes ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The annual cycle of precipitation and the interannual variability of the North American hydroclimate during summer months are analyzed in coupled simulations of the twentieth-century climate. The state-of-the-art general circulation models, participating in the Fourth Assessment Report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), included in the present study are the U.S. Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3), the Parallel Climate Model (PCM), the Goddard Institute for Space Studies model version EH (GISS-EH), and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Coupled Model version 2.1 (GFDL-CM2.1); the Met Office’s Third Hadley Centre Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere GCM (UKMO-HadCM3); and the Japanese Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate version 3.2 [MIROC3.2(hires)]. Datasets with proven high quality such as NCEP’s North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), and the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) U.S.–Mexico precipitation analysis are used as targets for simulations. Climatological precipitation is not easily simulated. While models capture winter precipitation very well over the U.S. northwest, they encounter failure over the U.S. southeast in the same season. Summer precipitation over the central United States and Mexico is also a great challenge for models, particularly the timing. In general the UKMO-HadCM3 is closest to the observations. The models’ potential in simulating interannual hydroclimate variability over North America during the warm season is varied and limited to the central United States. Models like PCM, and in particular UKMO-HadCM3, exhibit reasonably well the observed distribution and relative importance of remote and local contributions to precipitation variability over the region (i.e., convergence of remote moisture fluxes dominate over local evapotranspiration). However, in models like CCSM3 and GFDL-CM2.1 local contributions dominate over remote ones, in contrast with warm-season observations. In the other extreme are models like GISS-EH and MIROC3.2(hires) that prioritize the remote influence of moisture fluxes and neglect the local influence of land surface processes to the regional precipitation variability.

scholarly journals Global atmospheric response to specific linear combinations of the main SST modes. Part I: numerical experiments and preliminary results

1996 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 1066-1077 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Trzaska ◽  
V. Moron ◽  
B. Fontaine
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Experiments ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Atmospheric Model ◽  
Equatorial Atlantic ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. This article investigates through numerical experiments the controversial question of the impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena on climate according to large-scale and regional-scale interhemispheric thermal contrast. Eight experiments (two considering only inversed Atlantic thermal anomalies and six combining ENSO warm phase with large-scale interhemispheric contrast and Atlantic anomaly patterns) were performed with the Météo-France atmospheric general circulation model. The definition of boundary conditions from observed composites and principal components is presented and preliminary results concerning the month of August, especially over West Africa and the equatorial Atlantic are discussed. Results are coherent with observations and show that interhemispheric and regional scale sea-surface-temperature anomaly (SST) patterns could significantly modulate the impact of ENSO phenomena: the impact of warm-phase ENSO, relative to the atmospheric model intercomparison project (AMIP) climatology, seems stronger when embedded in global and regional SSTA patterns representative of the post-1970 conditions [i.e. with temperatures warmer (colder) than the long-term mean in the southern hemisphere (northern hemisphere)]. Atlantic SSTAs may also play a significant role.

scholarly journals Understanding Hailstone Temporal Variability and Contributing Factors over the U.S. Southern Great Plains

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 3947-3966
Author(s):  
Jong-Hoon Jeong ◽  
Jiwen Fan ◽  
Cameron R. Homeyer ◽  
Zhangshuan Hou
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Physical Factors ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Southern Great Plains ◽  
Aerosol Loading ◽  
The U.S

AbstractHailstones are a natural hazard that pose a significant threat to property and are responsible for significant economic losses each year in the United States. Detailed understanding of their characteristics is essential to mitigate their impact. Identifying the dynamic and physical factors contributing to hail formation and hailstone sizes is of great importance to weather and climate prediction and policymakers. In this study, we have analyzed the temporal and spatial variabilities of severe hail occurrences over the U.S. southern Great Plains (SGP) states from 2004 to 2016 using two hail datasets: hail reports from the Storm Prediction Center and the newly developed radar-retrieved maximum expected size of hail (MESH). It is found that severe and significant severe hail occurrences have a considerable year-to-year temporal variability in the SGP region. The interannual variabilities have a strong correspondence with sea surface temperature anomalies over the northern Gulf of Mexico and there is no outlier. The year 2016 is identified as an outlier for the correlations with both El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and aerosol loading. The correlations with ENSO and aerosol loading are not statistically robust to inclusion of the outlier 2016. Statistical analysis without the outlier 2016 shows that 1) aerosols that may be mainly from northern Mexico have the largest correlation with hail interannual variability among the three factors and 2) meteorological covariation does not significantly contribute to the high correlation. These analyses warrant further investigations of aerosol impacts on hail occurrence.

scholarly journals Does Afternoon Precipitation Occur Preferentially over Dry or Wet Soils in Oklahoma?

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 874-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trent W. Ford ◽  
Anita D. Rapp ◽  
Steven M. Quiring
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Great Plains ◽  
Convective Available Potential Energy ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Low Level Jet ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Soil Moisture Feedback

Abstract Soil moisture is an integral part of the climate system and can drive land–atmosphere interactions through the partitioning of latent and sensible heat. Soil moisture feedback to precipitation has been documented in several regions of the world, most notably in the southern Great Plains. However, the impact of soil moisture on precipitation, particularly at short (subdaily) time scales, has not been resolved. Here, in situ soil moisture observations and satellite-based precipitation estimates are used to examine if afternoon precipitation falls preferentially over wet or dry soils in Oklahoma. Afternoon precipitation events during the warm season (May–September) in Oklahoma from 2003 and 2012 are categorized by how favorable atmospheric conditions are for convection, as well as the presence or absence of the Great Plains low-level jet. The results show afternoon precipitation falls preferentially over wet soils when the Great Plains low-level jet is absent. In contrast, precipitation falls preferentially over dry soils when the low-level jet is present. Humidity (temperature) is increased (decreased) as soil moisture increases for all conditions, and convective available potential energy prior to convection is strongest when atmospheric humidity is above normal. The results do not demonstrate a causal link between soil moisture and precipitation, but they do suggest that soil moisture feedback to precipitation could potentially manifest itself over wetter- and drier-than-normal soils, depending on the overall synoptic and dynamic conditions.

scholarly journals Evaluation of the Hydrological Cycle in the ECHAM5 Model

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (16) ◽  
pp. 3810-3827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
Klaus Arpe ◽  
Erich Roeckner
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Vertical Resolution ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Enso Events ◽  
Precipitation Response ◽  
Simulated Precipitation ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This study investigates the impact of model resolution on the hydrological cycle in a suite of model simulations using a new version of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). Special attention is paid to the evaluation of precipitation on the regional scale by comparing model simulations with observational data in a number of catchments representing the major river systems on the earth in different climate zones. It is found that an increased vertical resolution, from 19 to 31 atmospheric layers, has a beneficial effect on simulated precipitation with respect to both the annual mean and the annual cycle. On the other hand, the influence of increased horizontal resolution, from T63 to T106, is comparatively small. Most of the improvements at higher vertical resolution, on the scale of a catchment, are due to large-scale moisture transport, whereas the impact of local water recycling through evapotranspiration is somewhat smaller. At high horizontal and vertical resolution (T106L31) the model captures most features of the observed hydrological cycle over land, and also the local and remote precipitation response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. Major deficiencies are the overestimation of precipitation over the oceans, especially at higher vertical resolution, along steep mountain slopes and during the Asian summer monsoon season, whereas a dry bias exists over Australia. In addition, the model fails to reproduce the observed precipitation response to ENSO variability in the Indian Ocean and Africa. This might be related to missing coupled air–sea feedbacks in an AGCM forced with observed sea surface temperatures.

THE IMPACT OF CROPPING ON PRIMARY PRODUCTION IN THE U.S. GREAT PLAINS

Ecology ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 86 (7) ◽  
pp. 1863-1872 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Bradford ◽  
William K. Lauenroth ◽  
Ingrid C. Burke
Keyword(s):  
Primary Production ◽  
Great Plains ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S
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