Abstract
Abstract. This work presents a characterisation of mesocyclone occurrence and frequency in the Alpine region, as observed from the Swiss operational radar network; 5 years of radar data are processed with a thunderstorm detection and tracking algorithm and subsequently with a new mesocyclone detection algorithm. A quality assessment of the radar domain provides additional information on the reliability of the tracking algorithms throughout the domain. The resulting data set provides the first insight into the spatiotemporal distribution of mesocyclones in the Swiss domain, with a more detailed focus on the influence of synoptic weather, diurnal cycle and terrain. Both on the northern and southern side of the Alps mesocyclonic signatures in thunderstorms occur regularly. The regions with the highest occurrence are predominantly the Southern Prealps and to a lesser degree the Northern Prealps. The parallels to hail research over the same region are discussed.
Highlights
Severe convection in Europe is an increasing weather hazard that causes significant damage and loss every year (Hoeppe, 2015; Púcik et al, 2019; Kron et al, 2019)
This work presents a characterisation of mesocyclone occurrence and frequency in the Alpine region, as observed from the Swiss operational radar network; 5 years of radar data are processed with a thunderstorm detection and tracking algorithm and subsequently with a new mesocyclone detection algorithm
The observational climatology established in this region is one of the longest, with mesocyclone detection algorithms having been introduced in the 1990s (Zrnicet al., 1985; Stumpf et al, 1998)
Summary
Severe convection in Europe is an increasing weather hazard that causes significant damage and loss every year (Hoeppe, 2015; Púcik et al, 2019; Kron et al, 2019). Feldmann et al.: A characterisation of mesocyclone occurrence in the Alpine region section targeting the evolution of convection All these recent campaigns show the relevance of investigating the nature of severe convection in mountainous areas. With hail being a prominent risk factor of severe convection in Switzerland, it is the focus of many recent studies They range from case studies on hailstorms (Trefalt et al, 2018) over collecting crowdsourced hail reports (Barras et al, 2019) and investigating hail in radar data (Nisi et al, 2016, 2018, 2020) to building a conclusive hail climatology from multiple data sources (NCCS, 2021). The classes directly correspond to the eight cardinal flow directions
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