scholarly journals Extreme Rainfall from Landfalling Tropical Cyclones in the Eastern United States: Hurricane Irene (2011)

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 2883-2904 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maofeng Liu ◽  
James A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Mountainous Terrain ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Rainfall Distribution ◽  
Extratropical Transition ◽  
Hurricane Irene ◽  
Landfalling Tropical Cyclones

Abstract Hurricane Irene produced catastrophic rainfall and flooding in portions of the eastern United States from 27 to 29 August 2011. Like a number of tropical cyclones that have produced extreme flooding in the northeastern United States, Hurricane Irene was undergoing extratropical transition during the period of most intense rainfall. In this study the rainfall distribution of landfalling tropical cyclones is examined, principally through analyses of radar rainfall fields and high-resolution simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model. In addition to extratropical transition, the changing storm environment at landfall and orographic precipitation mechanisms can be important players in controlling the distribution of extreme rainfall. Rainfall distribution from landfalling tropical cyclones is examined from a Lagrangian perspective, focusing on times of landfall and extratropical transition, as well as interactions of the storm circulation with mountainous terrain. WRF simulations capture important features of rainfall distribution, including the pronounced change in rainfall distribution during extratropical transition. Synoptic-scale analyses show that a deep baroclinic zone developed and strengthened in the left-front quadrant of Irene, controlling rainfall distribution over the regions experiencing most severe flooding. Numerical experiments were performed with WRF to examine the role of mountainous terrain in altering rainfall distribution. Analyses of Hurricane Irene are placed in a larger context through analyses of Hurricane Hannah (2008) and Hurricane Sandy (2012).

scholarly journals Mixture Distributions and the Hydroclimatology of Extreme Rainfall and Flooding in the Eastern United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Smith ◽  
Gabriele Villarini ◽  
Mary Lynn Baeck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Daily Rainfall ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Flood Peak ◽  
Storm Evolution ◽  
Landfalling Tropical Cyclones

Abstract Flooding in the eastern United States reflects a mixture of flood-generating mechanisms, with landfalling tropical cyclones and extratropical systems playing central roles. The authors examine the climatology of heavy rainfall and flood magnitudes for the eastern United States through analyses of long-duration records of flood peaks and maximum daily rainfall series. Spatial heterogeneities in flood peak distributions due to orographic precipitation mechanisms in mountainous terrain, coastal circulations near land–ocean boundaries, and urbanization impacts on regional climate are central elements of flood peak distributions. Lagrangian analyses of rainfall distribution and storm evolution are presented for flood events in the eastern United States and used to motivate new directions for stochastic modeling of rainfall. Tropical cyclones are an important element of the upper tail of flood peak distributions throughout the eastern United States, but their relative importance varies widely, and abruptly, in space over the region. Nonstationarities and long-term persistence of flood peak and rainfall distributions are examined from the perspective of the impacts of human-induced climate change on flood-generating mechanisms. Analyses of flood frequency for the eastern United States, which are based on observations from a dense network of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stream gauging stations, provide insights into emerging problems in flood science.

scholarly journals A 10-Year Survey of Extreme Rainfall Events in the Central and Eastern United States Using Gridded Multisensor Precipitation Analyses

2014 ◽  
Vol 142 (9) ◽  
pp. 3147-3162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie N. Stevenson ◽  
Russ S. Schumacher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Stage Iv ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Weather System ◽  
Extreme Rainfall Events ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Convective Systems ◽  
Maximum Minimum

Extreme rainfall events in the central and eastern United States during 2002–11 were identified using NCEP stage-IV precipitation analyses. Precipitation amounts were compared against established 50- and 100-yr recurrence interval thresholds for 1-, 6-, and 24-h durations. The authors identified points where analyzed precipitation exceeded the threshold, and combined points associated with the same weather system into events. At shorter durations, points exceeding the thresholds were most common in the Southeast, whereas points were more uniformly distributed for the 24-h duration. Most 24-h events have more points than the other durations, reflecting the importance of organized precipitation systems on longer temporal scales. Though monthly peaks varied by region, the maximum (minimum) usually occurred during the summer (winter); however, the 24-h point maximum occurred in September owing to tropical cyclones. The maximum (minimum) in hourly extreme rainfall points occurred at 2300 (1100) LST, though there were regional differences in the timing of the diurnal maxima and minima. Over half of 100-yr, 24-h events were a result of mesoscale convective systems (MCS), with synoptic and tropical systems responsible for nearly one-third and one-tenth, respectively. Of the 10 events with the most points exceeding this threshold, 5 were associated with tropical cyclones, 3 were synoptic events, and 2 were MCSs. Among the MCS events, 7 of the top 10 were training line/adjoining stratiform (TL/AS). While the 49 TL/AS events investigated further had similar moisture availability, the more widespread events had stronger low-level winds, stronger warm air advection, and stronger and more expansive frontogenesis in the inflow.

scholarly journals Spatial Characterization of Flood Magnitudes over the Drainage Network of the Delaware River Basin

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 957-976 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Lu ◽  
James A. Smith ◽  
Ning Lin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Drainage Network ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Delaware River ◽  
Flood Peak ◽  
Landfalling Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Flood Index

Abstract A framework to characterize the distribution of flood magnitudes over large river networks is developed using the Delaware River basin in the northeastern United States as a principal study region. Flood magnitudes are characterized by the flood index, which is defined as the ratio of the flood peak for a flood event to the historical 10-yr flood magnitude. Event flood peaks are computed continuously over the drainage network using a distributed hydrologic model, CUENCAS, with high-resolution radar rainfall fields as the principal forcing. The historical 10-yr flood is calculated based on scaling relationships between the 10-yr flood and drainage area. Summary statistics for characterizing the probability distribution and spatial correlation of flood magnitudes over the drainage network are developed based on the flood index. This framework is applied to four flood events in the Delaware River basin that reflect the principal flood-generating mechanisms in the eastern United States: landfalling tropical cyclones (Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 and Hurricane Irene in August 2011), late winter/early spring extratropical systems (April 2005), and warm season convective systems (June 2006). The framework can be utilized to characterize the spatial distribution of floods, most notably for floods caused by landfalling tropical cyclones, which play an important role in controlling the upper tail of flood peak magnitudes over much of the eastern United States.

scholarly journals The Influence of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones on Drought over the Eastern United States (1980–2007)

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 3067-3086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonghun Kam ◽  
Justin Sheffield ◽  
Xing Yuan ◽  
Eric F. Wood
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Drought Duration ◽  
Study Region

Abstract To assess the influence of Atlantic tropical cyclones (TCs) on the eastern U.S. drought regime, the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) land surface hydrologic model was run over the eastern United States forced by the North American Land Data Assimilation System phase 2 (NLDAS-2) analysis with and without TC-related precipitation for the period 1980–2007. A drought was defined in terms of soil moisture as a prolonged period below a percentile threshold. Different duration droughts were analyzed—short term (longer than 30 days) and long term (longer than 90 days)—as well as different drought severities corresponding to the 10th, 15th, and 20th percentiles of soil moisture depth. With TCs, droughts are shorter in duration and of a lesser spatial extent. Tropical cyclones variously impact soil moisture droughts via late drought initiation, weakened drought intensity, and early drought recovery. At regional scales, TCs decreased the average duration of moderately severe short-term and long-term droughts by less than 4 (10% of average drought duration per year) and more than 5 (15%) days yr−1, respectively. Also, they removed at least two short-term and one long-term drought events over 50% of the study region. Despite the damage inflicted directly by TCs, they play a crucial role in the alleviation and removal of drought for some years and seasons, with important implications for water resources and agriculture.

Characteristics of Landfalling Tropical Cyclones in the United States and Mexico: Climatology and Interannual Variability

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 1247-1262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Larson ◽  
Yaping Zhou ◽  
R. Wayne Higgins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Interannual Variability ◽  
Atmospheric Circulation ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
El Niño ◽  
El Nino ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Landfalling Tropical Cyclones

Abstract The climatology and interannual variability of landfalling tropical cyclones and their impacts on precipitation in the continental United States and Mexico are examined. The analysis is based on National Hurricane Center 6-hourly tropical cyclone track data for the Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins and gridded daily U.S. precipitation data for the period August–October 1950–98. Geographic maps of total tropical cyclone strike days, and the mean and maximum percentage of precipitation due to tropical cyclones, are examined by month. To make the procedures objective, it is assumed that precipitation is symmetric about the storm’s center. While this introduces some uncertainty in the analysis, sensitivity tests show that this assumption is reasonable for precipitation within 5° of the circulation center. The relationship between landfalling tropical cyclones and two leading patterns of interannual climate variability—El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Arctic Oscillation (AO)—are then examined. Relationships between tropical cyclone frequency and intensity and composites of 200-hPa geopotential height and wind shear anomalies are also examined as a function of ENSO phase and AO phase using classifications devised at the Climate Prediction Center. The data show that tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin is modulated on both seasonal and intraseasonal time scales by the AO and ENSO and that impact of the two modes of climate variability is greater together than apart. This suggests that, during La Niña conditions, atmospheric circulation is more conducive to activity in the main development region during AO-positive conditions than during AO-negative ones and that, during El Niño conditions, atmospheric circulation appears even less conducive to tropical cyclone development during the negative phase of the AO than during the positive phase.

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.

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