Abstract
An in-depth analysis of historical heavy rainfall fields clearly constitutes an important aspect in many related topics: as examples, mesoscale models for early warning systems and the definition of design event scenarios can be improved, with the consequent upgrading in the prediction of induced phenomena (mainly floods and landslides) into specific areas of interest. With this goal, in this work the authors focused on Calabria region (southern Italy) and classified the main precipitation systems through the analysis of selected heavy rainfall events from high resolution rain gauge network time series. Moreover, the authors investigated the relationships among the selected events and the main synoptic atmospheric patterns derived by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA5 Reanalysis dataset, in order to assess the possible large-scale scenarios which can induce heavy rainfall events in the study area. The obtained results highlighted: (i) the importance of areal reduction factors, rainfall intensities and amounts in order to discriminate the investigated precipitations systems for the study area; (ii) the crucial role played by the position of the averaged low-pressure areas over the Mediterranean for the synoptic systems, and by low-level temperature for the convective systems.
Highlights
The classification of the main atmospheric patterns related to heavy rainfall fields plays an important role in many topics concerning rainfall modelling and forecasting; it is very useful for the definition of event scenarios and subsequent risk evaluation for a prefixed study area.As reported in [1], precipitation systems can be mainly regrouped in convective and stratiform events, and the main worldwide observed rainfall patterns can be considered as a combination of these two components
A growth for sea surface temperature (SST) induces the increase of humid air, and of Tables 1 and 2); it has been observed that June-July-August (JJA) and September-October-November the vertical motion of these air masses, which cause intense and abundant precipitations in contact (SON) seasons were most affected by intense events
The orographic characteristics of Calabria play a seasons for more details, www.metoffice.gov.uk), with a prevalence for September and October crucial role: the orographic barriers can mechanically force the motion months
Summary
The classification of the main atmospheric patterns related to heavy rainfall fields plays an important role in many topics concerning rainfall modelling and forecasting; it is very useful for the definition of event scenarios and subsequent risk evaluation for a prefixed study area.As reported in [1], precipitation systems can be mainly regrouped in convective and stratiform events, and the main worldwide observed rainfall patterns can be considered as a combination of these two components. Focusing on the Mediterranean area, the weather systems are usually grouped into three main classes [2,3,4]: synoptic systems, which are the prevalent ones; convective systems, mainly associated to heat-related instability and Tropical-Like Cyclones (TLC), or Medicanes, which are very intense but less frequent with respect to the previous ones. The first group comprises rainfall events with an extension of about 103 –104 km2 [5], in which cells, or clusters of cells, with a high intensity are often visible The duration for these events usually varies from several hours to several days. Their motion regards hundreds of kilometers (according to the atmospheric circulation) and ordinary extreme events
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