Identification of synoptic patterns for extreme rainfall events associated with landfalling typhoons in China during 1960–2020

Abstract

Extreme rainfall associated with landfalling typhoon (ERLTC) can cause severe disasters and economic impacts throughout China. Improving the accuracy of ERLTC forecasts is therefore crucial in disaster prevention and mitigation. The top 26 ERLTC events in China during 1960–2020 are investigated based on multi-source datasets. These ERLTC events are categorized into five main types according to the geographical location of the extreme precipitation and its position relative to the tropical cyclone (TC) center, namely: the typhoon inner-core rainfall in Taiwan (TWIC), typhoon inverted trough rainfall in Taiwan (TWIT), weak typhoon rainfall in Hainan (HNWK), strong typhoon rainfall in Zhejiang (ZJST) and inland typhoon remnant rainfall (ILRM). All the ERLTC events occurred in the weakening stage of TC after reaching its lifetime maximum intensity in convective cloud (TBB ≤ −32 °C) regions over complex local terrain. The translational speeds of 20 TCs (76.9% of the total) were smaller than the climatological average (20.6 km h−1) during the extreme precipitation events. The differences are as follows: the TWIC and TWIT types are featured with different season, track and water vapor channel although both occurred in Taiwan. The other three types are distinguished by spinning track and strong convective cloud for HNWK type, strong TC intensity and binary TC interactions for ZJST type; and stagnation and strong westerly trough activity for ILRM type, respectively. These results are expected to provide useful clues for an in-depth understanding of ERLTC events over China.