Weak upstream westerly wind attracts western north pacific typhoon tracks to west

The steering flow of the large-scale circulation patterns over the Western North Pacific and North East Asia, constrains typhoon tracks. Westerly winds impinging on the Tibetan Plateau, and the resulting flow uplift along the slope of the mountain, induce atmospheric vortex flow and generate stationary barotropic Rossby waves downstream. The downstream Rossby wave zonal phase is determined by the upstream zonal wind speed impinging on the Tibetan Plateau. Positive anomaly of westerly wind forcing tends to induce an eastward shift of the large-scale Rossby wave circulation pattern, forming a cyclonic circulation anomaly over North East Asia. In this study, we show that the Tibetan Plateau dynamically impacts the tracks of western Pacific typhoons via modulation of downstream Rossby waves. Using the topographically forced stationary Rossby wave theory, the dynamical mechanisms for the formation of the North East Asian cyclonic anomaly and its impact on the typhoon tracks are analyzed. The eastward shift of typhoon tracks, caused by the southwesterly wind anomaly located to the southeast of the North East Asian cyclonic circulation anomaly, is robust in June and September, but it is not statistically significant in July–August. The physical understanding of the large-scale circulation pattern affecting typhoon trajectories has large implications not only at the seasonal prediction of the high impact weather phenomena, but also at the right understanding of the long-term climate change.

A Quantitative Method for the Similarity Assessment of Typhoon Tracks

Typhoons are one of the most dangerous types of natural hazards; they are always developed in the western and southwestern Pacific Ocean and pose economic and human security threats to the Pacific Rim annually. Therefore, many scholars in related fields devote themselves to finding an effective way to analyze and forecast typhoon tracks to prevent disasters. Similarity analysis of typhoon tracks can provide great help for typhoon prediction. In this paper, a model for typhoon similarity analysis is proposed to effectively measure and quantify the similarity between two historical typhoon tracks based on the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm, in which five typhoon elements – namely, longitude, latitude, central pressure, expanded Beaufort scale, and movement speed – are integrated to derive a final similarity percentage indicating the similarity level. At the end of this paper, case studies concerning historical typhoons and the ongoing Typhoon 202106 In-Fa are also conducted to verify the validity and effectiveness of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model can effectively provide a quantitative similarity of two typhoon tracks when functioning well on ongoing typhoons with a cutoff rule and supplying promising support for typhoon prediction simultaneously.

A Comparative Modeling Study of Supertyphoons Mangkhut and Yutu (2018) Past the Philippines with Ocean-Coupled HWRF

The ocean-coupled Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) system was used to investigate the evolution of Supertyphoons Mangkhut and Yutu (2018) over the Philippines Sea and near landfall in the northern Philippines. The simulation results indicate that Mangkhut at a deepening stage has a smaller track sensitivity to the use of different physics schemes but greater intensity sensitivity, which becomes reversed for Yutu at a weakening stage. When both upstream tracks are well simulated with some specific suite of physics schemes, sensitivity experiments indicate that both track deviations near the northern Philippines are only weakly modified by the air–sea interaction (ocean-coupled or uncoupled processes), the topographic effects of the Philippines terrain (retained or not), and the initial ocean temperature change along both typhoon tracks. The interactions between the internal typhoon vortex and the large-scale flow play an important role in the overall movement of both typhoons, which were explored for their structural and convective evolutions near the terrain. The wavenumber-one potential vorticity (PV) tendency budget of the typhoon vortex was analyzed to explain the induced typhoon translation from different physical processes. The west-northwestward translation for the stronger Mangkhut near the northern Philippines is primarily induced by both horizontal and vertical PV advection but with the latter further enhanced to dominate the northward deflection when closing in to the terrain. However, the northwestward translation and track deflection near landfall for the weaker Yutu are driven by the dominant horizontal PV advection. Differential diabatic heating is relatively less important for affecting the movement of both typhoons near landfall.

Fast Storm Surge Ensemble Prediction using Searching Optimization of a Numerical Scenario Database

Accurate storm surge forecasts provided rapidly could support timely decision-making with consideration of tropical cyclone (TC) forecasting error. This study developed a fast storm surge ensemble prediction method based on TC track probability forecasting and searching optimization of a numerical scenario database (SONSD). In a case study of the Fujian Province coast (China), a storm surge scenario database was established using numerical simulations generated by 93,150 hypothetical TCs. In a GIS-based visualization system, a single surge forecast representing 2562 distinct typhoon tracks and the occurrence probability of overflow of seawalls along the coast could be achieved in 1–2 min. Application to the cases of Typhoon Soudelor (2015) and Typhoon Maria (2018) demonstrated that the proposed method is feasible and effective. Storm surge calculated by SONSD had excellent agreement with numerical model results (i.e., mean MAE/RMSE: 7.1/10.7 cm, correlation coefficient: >0.9). Tide prediction also performed well with MAE/RMSE of 9.7/11.6 cm versus the harmonic tide, and MAE/RMSE of phase prediction for all high waters of 0.25/0.31 h versus observations. The predicted high-water level was satisfactory (MAE of 10.8 cm versus observations) when the forecasted and actual positions of the typhoon were close. When the forecasted typhoon position error was large, the ensemble surge prediction effectively reduced prediction error (i.e., the negative bias of −58.5 cm reduced to −5.2 cm versus observations), which helped avoid missed alert warnings. The proposed method could be applied in other regions to provide rapid and accurate decision-making support for government departments.

Modulation of Typhoon-Induced Sea Surface Cooling by Preexisting Eddies in the South China Sea

The interactions between mesoscale eddies and typhoons are important for understanding the oceanic environment, but large variance is identified in each case because of the complex underlying dynamics. Fifteen-year datasets of typhoon tracks and eddy tracks in the South China Sea (SCS) are employed to comprehensively determine the influence of preexisting eddies on typhoon-induced sea surface cooling (SSC). Typhoons with high wind speeds and slow translation speeds induce large SSC in summer and autumn, when more than 80% of typhoons occur during a year. The relative locations of typhoons and eddies are used to classify their distributions, and four groups are identified, with typhoons traversing to the left or right of cyclonic or anticyclonic eddies. Generally, cyclonic eddies (CEs) located to the right of a typhoon track can result in a large cooling core, but anticyclonic eddies (AEs) can interrupt the cooling band along the right side of typhoon tracks. The recovery from typhoon-induced SSC takes longer than 15 days, though preexisting AEs can induce a rapid rebound after reaching the minimum sea surface temperature (SST). In addition, the dependence of SSCs on a typhoon’s features, such as wind speed and translation speed, are amplified (reduced) by CEs (AEs). The enhancement of typhoon-induced local SSC by CEs is counterbalanced by the suppression of SSC by AEs; thus, the overall impacts of CEs and AEs on typhoon-induced local SSC are relatively weak in the SCS.

A review: anomaly based versus full-field based weather analysis and forecasting

Comparisons between anomaly and full-field methods have been carried out in weather analysis and forecasting over the last decade. Evidence from these studies has demonstrated the superiority of anomaly to full-field in the following four aspects: depiction of weather systems, anomaly forecasts, diagnostic parameters and model prediction. To promote the use and further discussion of the anomaly approach, this article summarizes those findings.After examining many types of weather events, anomaly weather maps show at least five advantages in weather system depiction: (1) less vagueness in visually connecting the location of an event with its associated meteorological conditions; (2) clearer and more complete depictions of vertical structures of a disturbance; (3) easier observation of time and spatial evolution of an event and its interaction or connection with other weather systems; (4) simplification of conceptual models by unifying different weather systems into one pattern; and (5) extension of model forecast length due to earlier detection of predictors. Anomaly verification is also mentioned. The anomaly forecast is useful for raising one’s awareness of potential societal impact. Combining the anomaly forecast with an ensemble is emphasized, where a societal impact index is discussed. For diagnostic parameters, two examples are given: an anomalous convective instability index for convection, and seven vorticity and divergence related parameters for heavy rain. Both showed positive contributions from the anomalous fields. For model prediction, the anomaly version of the beta-advection model consistently outperformed its full-field version in predicting typhoon tracks with clearer physical explanation. Application of anomaly global models to seasonal forecasts is also reviewed.

Phylogeography of Ryukyu insular cicadas: Extensive vicariance by island isolation vs accidental dispersal by super typhoon

Cicadas tend to be affected by vicariance reflecting poor mobility of nymphs underground and weak flying ability of adults. However, modern collection records of invasive cicada, combined with records of typhoon tracks, and newly obtained phylogeographic data suggest long distance, relatively instantaneous, dispersal of some vicariantly speciated cicadas. We address the importance of this typhoon dispersal mechanism applied to representative species of east Asian endemic cicadas of Cryptotympana, Mogannia, Euterpnosia and Meimuna. We combine BEAST-dated phylogenic and haplotype network analyses, modern collection data of non-native cicadas available in reports of the Japanese insect associations, modern typhoon records by Japan Meteorological Agency, and our own Quaternary geological constriction data. In conclusion, although Ryukyu endemic cicadas were vicariantly speciated, endemic cicadas on some islands were accidentally dispersed long distances to another island by typhoons, particularly those associated with super typhoons generated since 1.55 Ma.

Simulation of storm surge inundation under different typhoon intensity scenarios: case study of Pingyang County, China

China is one of the countries that is most seriously affected by storm surges. In recent years, storm surges in coastal areas of China have caused huge economic losses and a large number of human casualties. Knowledge of the inundation range and water depth of storm surges under different typhoon intensities could assist predisaster risk assessment and making evacuation plans, as well as provide decision support for responding to storm surges. Taking Pingyang County in Zhejiang Province as a case study area, parameters including typhoon tracks, radius of maximum wind speed, astronomical tide, and upstream flood runoff were determined for different typhoon intensities. Numerical simulations were conducted using these parameters to investigate the inundation range and water depth distribution of storm surges in Pingyang County considering the impact of seawall collapse under five different intensity scenarios (corresponding to minimum central pressure values equal to 915, 925, 935, 945, and 965 hPa). The inundated area ranged from 103.51 to 233.16 km2 for the most intense typhoon. The proposed method could be easily adopted in various coastal counties and serves as an effective tool for decision-making in storm surge disaster risk reduction practices.