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Synoptic and cloud-scale aspects related to an extreme rainfall event that occurred in April 2019 in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

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Abstract

The development, rate, and duration of extreme rainfall events over a region depend on the coexistence and strength of multiple atmospheric physical conditions. Then, understanding the synoptic and cloud-scale aspects is a continuous, crucial integrated task between universities and operational centers aiming for early warning and risk management. This study first evaluates the large-scale atmospheric circulation, instability behavior, and moisture parameters before and after the start of rainfall. It also investigates the dynamic triggering for an extreme rainfall event in Rio de Janeiro between April 08th and 09th, 2019. Secondly, this study intended to examine the microphysics cloud aspects using data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-16). From monthly records and the 99th percentile of accumulated daily rainfall, it was possible to highlight the spatial rainfall dependence on seasonal and topography with higher rainfall values recorded in the south portion of the city of Rio de Janeiro. From the large-scale synoptic aspects, concomitant circulations related to upper, middle, and lower atmospheric levels creating a dynamic vertical structure favorable to convective development were verified over southeastern Brazil. The thermodynamic parameters showed different characteristics before and after rainfall started, suggesting multi-parameters' importance as so-called "instability ingredients" for evaluating the atmospheric potential for clouds and rainfall development. The velocity divergence in upper atmospheric levels was a determinant dynamic forcing for deep convection evolution. Lastly, regarding the wind circulations, northwest winds before precipitation and a change in wind direction were related to the region's frontal systems passage. The cloud microphysics aspects showed that the channel differences approach showed that monitoring top cloud glaciation, vertical development, and particle size are indicators of heavy rainfall when the cloud top offering considerable vertical growth was a helpful tool to identify regions with huge potential to develop heavy rain.

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Data availability

The data used is open access. From Weather Prevision Center and Climate Studies of Brazilian National Space Research Institute (https://www.cptec.inpe.br/), the ERA 5 reanalysis data (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-single-levels) from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and rainfall observed data from Alerta Rio System (http://alertario.rio.rj.gov.br/). This work presents figures and tables as supplementary material.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology, Institute of Geosciences, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ, CCMN ‑ Cidade Universitária - Ilha do Fundão, Avenida Athos da Silveira Ramos, 274, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21941‑916, Brazil

    Fabricio Polifke da Silva, Wanderson Luiz-Silva & José Ricardo de Almeida França

  2. Servicio Nacional de Meteorologia e Hidrología del Peru, Jirón Cahuide 721, Jesús María, 15072, Lima, Peru

    Joao H. Huamán-Chinchay

Authors
  1. Fabricio Polifke da Silva
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  2. Wanderson Luiz-Silva
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  3. Joao H. Huamán-Chinchay
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  4. José Ricardo de Almeida França
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Contributions

FPdaS structured the article, generated the manuscript figures, analyzed, and wrote the results, especially regarding the instability indices. WL-S wrote the bibliographic review and the developments related to rainfall climatology and the extreme rainfall approach. JHH-C generated the manuscript figures associated with cloud microphysics and analyzed their results. JRdeAF contributed to the conclusion and revised the article.

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Correspondence to Fabricio Polifke da Silva.

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da Silva, F.P., Luiz-Silva, W., Huamán-Chinchay, J.H. et al. Synoptic and cloud-scale aspects related to an extreme rainfall event that occurred in April 2019 in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Meteorol Atmos Phys 136, 6 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-023-01003-x

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