Moisture sources of a torrential rainfall event in the arid region of East Xinjiang, China, based on a Lagrangian model

Abstract

Moisture sources and transport paths for precipitation are of primary importance for forecasts and early warning, but are rarely studied in the arid region of China. Our study employed the hybrid single-particle Lagrangian integrated trajectory (HYSPLIT) model to investigate and quantify the moisture sources which contributed to a torrential rainfall event on 15–18 July 2007 in the arid Xinjiang region in China. Based on the distribution of torrential rains, the target study region was selected at East Xinjiang (35°N–45°N, 80°E–95°E). The results indicate that moisture sources originating from the south, west, and north branches, and moisture sources in the Atlantic Oceans and Central Asia regions contributed to the East Xinjiang rain event by 37 and 44%, respectively. Our findings match those from diagnostic results of an Eulerian framework model, but the HYSPLIT model provided better quantitative and objective results.