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Evolution of warm season intense rainfall in Yaan against a cold-anomaly background

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Abstract

This study investigates the rainfall characteristics during intense rainfall over Yaan against a cold-anomaly background, aiming to refine the understanding of different kinds of rainfall events across complex terrain. Hourly rain gauge records, ERA5 reanalysis data and the black body temperature of cloud tops derived from FY-2E were used. The results show that against a cold-anomaly background, the regional rainfall events (RREs) in Yaan exhibit west-to-east propagation, which is different from the north-to-south evolution of warm RREs. The middle and upper troposphere is dominated by a negative geopotential height anomaly corresponding to the cold anomaly. The cyclonic circulation at the higher level associated with the negative geopotential height anomaly bends the high-level jet to the south, forming a divergent zone over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and guiding mid-level systems to move eastward. The cyclonic circulation at the mid-level produces a wind shear zone over the TP, generating anomalous vorticity that continuously moves eastward and develops to influence the rainfall over Yaan. The cold Yaan RREs are closely related to the TP low-pressure systems (both vortex and shearline). The anomalous vorticity over the TP can influence the local vortex over the eastern periphery of the TP at a distance mainly by the horizontal advection of anomalous vorticity by the mean flow and then enhance the local vortex mainly by anomalous convergence when it moves near Yaan.

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Data availability

The hourly rain-gauge records and the black body temperature of cloud tops derived from FY-2E analyzed during the current study are available at http://data.cma.cn. The ERA5 reanalysis data used in the present study is available at https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-pressure-levels?tab=form.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the constructive comments and suggestions from the anonymous reviewers and the editor. The NCAR Command Language (2019) are also greatly appreciated. The reference of NCAR Command Language, which should been inserted in the reference list, is as follow: The NCAR Command Language (Version 6.6.2) [Software]. (2019). Boulder, Colorado: UCAR/NCAR/CISL/TDD. http://dx.doi.org/10.5065/D6WD3XH5.

Funding

This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41875112) and the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC1507603).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xuelin Hu & Weihua Yuan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xuelin Hu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

    Rucong Yu

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  1. Xuelin Hu
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  2. Weihua Yuan
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  3. Rucong Yu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by RY, and analysis were performed by WY and XH. The first draft of the manuscript was written by XH and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Weihua Yuan.

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Hu, X., Yuan, W. & Yu, R. Evolution of warm season intense rainfall in Yaan against a cold-anomaly background. Clim Dyn 59, 2169–2180 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06202-7

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