Increasing duration of tropical cyclones over China

Abstract

Tropical cyclone (TC) damage is closely associated with the time TCs spend over land. After examining 233 TCs that formed over the western North Pacific and then made landfall over China mainland during 1951-2009, this study shows a significant increase in the annual average overland duration of a TC over the past 35 years from 1975 to 2009, while no significant trend can be detected in the annual frequency. The increasing duration over land is consistent with the increasing rainfall associated with the landfall TCs and changes in the large-scale steering flow. It seems that the decreasing vertical wind shear allows the landfall TCs to increase survival time over land during the past 35 years. Copyright © 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.