A Comparison of precipitation distribution of two landfalling tropical cyclones during the extratropical transition

Abstract

The precipitation distributions associated with two landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) during extratropical transition (ET) were examined in this study. Their distinction is that the bulk of precipitation fell to the left of the TC track in one TC and to the right in the other. The analyses indicate that, for the TC Haima (2004) case, accompanied by the approach of a deep midlatitude trough throughout the depth of the troposphere, the warm and moist air advection by the southeasterly flow north of TC was favorable for warm advection and frontogenesis to the northwest of the TC. Due to the steepening of equivalent potential temperature (θ _e), the air-parcel uplift along the θ _e surface, in collaboration with thermally direct circulation related to frontogenesis, led to enhanced precipitation northwest of the TC. In contrast, for TC Matsa (2005) embedded within a moister environment, a weak midlatitude trough was situated at the mid-upper level. The convection was triggered by the conditional instability at the lower level and then sustained by dynamic forcing at the mid-upper level so that the heavy precipitation occurred to the northeast of TC. For the two TC cases, the precipitation enhancement was also linked to the upper-level anomalous divergence associated with the jet-related forcing on the right side of the jet entrance. From the quasigeostrophic perspective, the advection of geostrophic absolute vorticity by the thermal wind most likely served as an indication reflecting the displacement of the vertical motion relative to the center of the TC.