A Modeling Study of Typhoon Nari (2001) at Landfall. Part I: Topographic Effects

Abstract

Although there have been many observational and modeling studies of tropical cyclones, understanding of their intensity and structural changes after landfall is rather limited. In this study, several 84-h cloud-resolving simulations of Typhoon Nari (2001), a typhoon that produced torrential rainfall of more than 1400 mm over Taiwan, are carried out using a quadruply nested–grid mesoscale model whose finest grid size was 2 km. It is shown that the model reproduces reasonably well Nari’s kinematic and precipitation features as well as structural changes, as verified against radar and rain gauge observations. These include the storm track, the contraction and sizes of the eye and eyewall, the spiral rainbands, the rapid pressure rise (∼1.67 hPa h−1) during landfall, and the nearly constant intensity after landfall. In addition, the model captures the horizontal rainfall distribution and some local rainfall maxima associated with Taiwan’s orography. A series of sensitivity experiments are performed in which Taiwan’s topography is reduced to examine the topographic effects on Nari’s track, intensity, rainfall distribution, and amount. Results show that the impact of island terrain on Nari’s intensity is nearly linear, with stronger storm intensity but less rainfall in lower-terrain runs. In contrast, changing the terrain heights produces nonlinear tracks with circular shapes and variable movements associated with different degrees of blocking effects. Parameter and diagnostic analyses reveal that the nonlinear track dependence on terrain heights results from the complex interactions between the environmental steering flow, Nari’s intensity, and Taiwan’s topography, whereas the terrain-induced damping effects balance the intensifying effects of latent heat release associated with the torrential rainfall in maintaining the near-constant storm intensity after landfall.