Inferences of predictability associated with warm season precipitation episodes

Abstract

Herein preliminary findings are reported from a radar-based climatology of warm season precipitation "episodes." Episodes are defined as time-space clusters of heavy precipitation that often result from sequences of organized convection such as squall lines, mesoscale convective systems, and mesoscale convective complexes. Episodes exhibit coherent rainfall patterns, characteristics of propagating events, under a broad range of atmospheric conditions. Such rainfall patterns are most frequent under "weakly forced" conditions in midsummer. The longevity of episodes, up to 60 h, suggests an intrinsic predictability of warm season rainfall that significantly exceeds the lifetime of individual convective systems. Episodes are initiated primarily in response to diurnal and semidiurnal forcings. Diurnal forcing is dominant near the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains, whereas semidiurnal forcing is dominant between these cordilleras. A most common longitude of origin is at or near the east slope of the Continental Divide (105°W). These observations are consistent with a condition of continual thermal forcing, widespread hydrodynamic instability, and the existence of other processes that routinely excite, maintain, and regenerate organized convection. The propagation speed of major episodes is often in excess of rates that are easily attributable either to the phase speeds of large-scale forcing or to advection from low- to midlevel "steering" winds. It is speculated that wavelike mechanisms, in the free troposphere and/or the planetary boundary layer, may contribute to the rates of motion observed. Once understood, the representation of such mechanisms in forecast models offers the opportunity for improved predictions of warm season rainfall.