A 28-year climatological analysis of size parameters for Northwestern Pacific tropical cyclones

Abstract

A 28-year best track dataset containing size parameters that include the radii of the 15.4 m s−1 winds (R15) and the 25.7 m s−1 winds (R26) of tropical cyclones (TCs) in the Northwestern Pacific, the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis dataset and the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) dataset are employed in this study. The climatology of size parameters for the tropical cyclones in the Northwestern Pacific from 1977 to 2004 is investigated in terms of the spatial and temporal distributions. The results show that the major activity of TCs in the Northwestern Pacific is from July to October. A majority of TCs lie over the ocean west of 150°E, and a few TCs can intensify to the Saffir-Simpson (S-S) categories 4, 5. Both R15 and R26 tend to increase as the tropical cyclones intensify. The values of R15 and R26 are larger for intense TCs in the Northwestern Pacific than in the North Atlantic generally. Both R15 and R26 peak in October, and before and after October, R15 and R26 decrease, which is different from the case in the North Atlantic. The smaller R15s and R26s occur in a large range over the Northwestern Pacific, while the larger R15s and R26s mainly lie in the eastern ocean from Taiwan Island to the Philippine Islands where many tropical cyclones develop in intense systems. The tropical cyclones with size parameters of R15 or R26 on average take a longer time to intensify than to weaken, and the weak tropical cyclones have faster weakening rates than intensification rates. From 1977 to 2004, the annual mean values of R15 increase basically with year; during the 28-year period, the value of R15 increases by 52.7 km, but R26 does not change with year obviously.