Is Pacific Storm-Track Activity Correlated with the Strength of Upstream Wave Seeding?

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, the relationship between upstream seeding over north Asia and downstream storm-track activity over the North Pacific in midwinter and spring/fall has been analyzed using 45 years of variance and feature-tracking statistics. It is shown that for each season, interannual variations in upstream seeding and downstream storm-track activity are largely uncorrelated. Moreover, during midwinter months in which the upstream seeding from north Asia is about as strong as that during a typical spring/fall month, the downstream storm track in central Pacific is still significantly weaker during midwinter than that during spring/fall. In addition, during cool seasons in which the midwinter suppression is more pronounced in the upstream seeding region, the suppression is not significantly enhanced in the downstream Pacific storm track. A recent study suggested that reduced upstream seeding from north Asia is the main “source” of the midwinter suppression of the Pacific storm track. Results presented in this study suggest that it is unlikely that the weakness in upstream seeding is the primary cause of the midwinter suppression.