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Observed summer weather regimes and associated extreme precipitation over Distrito Federal, west-central Brazil

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Abstract

The spatial and temporal variabilities of summer precipitation in west-central Brazil result in water supply variability and impact on water resources, agriculture and urban infrastructure. The diagnostic study of the variability of summer rainfall is accomplished through the relationship between the global atmospheric circulation and extreme precipitation over the Distrito Federal applying the technique of neural networks, the self-organizing (Kohonen) map and hierarchical ascendant classification. Nine weather regimes were identified (WRs), one group with four wet WRs with extreme precipitation, representing spatial variability of the active phase of South American Monsoon System (SAMS). One WR with the convergence zone in the central position of the country, two WRs positioned farther north suggesting be influenced by Madden–Julian Oscillation, and another WR further south may be influenced by Rossby waves. Five other dry WRs were associated with the break phases of the SAMS, or transitional regimes, without the formation of the convergence zone, but with an active low-level jet. In this group, less extreme precipitation events occurred in the central part of the country. The WRs relating large-scale atmospheric circulation and local precipitation enable better understanding of the intraseasonal variability in the regional scale.

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Acknowledgments

Jhan Carlo Espinoza, Marcos Villacis, Marco Calderón and staff for training course, Michelle Reboita for suggestions and programming. ANA and INMET for precipitation data. ECMWF for ERA-Interim data set. A NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD Boulder, Colorado, USA, for GPCP data, in http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. “The GPCP combined precipitation data were developed and computed by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center’s Laboratory for Atmospheres as a contribution to the GEWEX Global Precipitation Climatology Project”. The TRMM-PR data set, available in http://www.geog.edu/~bodo/TRMM. The Água-DF Project (Brasília University, Caesb, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ Leipzig) and Dresden University). We thank the anonymous reviewers for constructive suggestions.

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  1. Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, ICC Ala Central, Caixa Postal 04465, Brasília, DF, CEP:70.910-970, Brazil

    Yumiko Marina Tanaka da Anunciação & Detlef Hans-Gert Walde

  2. Depto. de Ciências Atmosféricas, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, 1226, Butantã, São Paulo, CEP:05508-900, Brazil

    Rosmeri Porfírio da Rocha

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  1. Yumiko Marina Tanaka da Anunciação
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Correspondence to Yumiko Marina Tanaka da Anunciação.

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da Anunciação, Y.M.T., Walde, D.HG. & da Rocha, R.P. Observed summer weather regimes and associated extreme precipitation over Distrito Federal, west-central Brazil. Environ Earth Sci 72, 4835–4848 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3607-9

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