Abstract
There continues to be a need to relate rainfall produced by tropical cyclones (TCs) to moisture in the near-storm environment. This research measured the distribution of volumetric rainfall around 43 TCs at the time of landfall over the U.S. Gulf Coast. The spatial patterns of rainfall were related to atmospheric moisture, storm intensity, vertical wind shear, and storm motion. We employed a geographic information system (GIS) to perform the spatial analysis of satellite-derived rain rates and total precipitable water (TPW), which was measured on the day before landfall. Mann–Whitney U tests revealed statistically significant differences in conditions when TCs were grouped by location. TCs moving over Texas entrained dry air from the continent to produce less rainfall to the left of their moving direction. As moisture was plentiful, rainfall symmetry during landfall over the central Gulf Coast was mainly determined by the vector of vertical wind shear and storm intensity. For landfalls over the Florida peninsula, interaction with a cooler and drier air mass left of center created an uplift boundary that corresponded with more rainfall on the TC’s left side when the moisture boundary represented by the 40 mm contour of TPW existed 275–350 km from the storm center.
Highlights
Tropical cyclones (TCs) can cause much destruction as they bring damaging winds, storm surges, and/or heavy rainfall when moving near and over land
For TCs over the ocean, vertical wind shear and storm motion are known to be dominant factors that influence the symmetry of TC rainfall regions [7,8,9]
We explored whether the relationship vertical asymmetry more rainfall the right or left side
Summary
Tropical cyclones (TCs) can cause much destruction as they bring damaging winds, storm surges, and/or heavy rainfall when moving near and over land. For TCs over the ocean, vertical wind shear and storm motion are known to be dominant factors that influence the symmetry of TC rainfall regions [7,8,9]. The amount of TPW available to enter a TC’s circulation should decrease as the system moves into a hot and dry continental air mass or encounters a relatively cool and dry air mass associated with a middle latitude trough or a frontal system This unbalanced distribution of moisture should induce asymmetries in TC rainfall production, when the dry air mass is near the storm center. As wind shear values were not available at the time closest to landfall for six storms, data from 3 to 6 h earlier were used for these storms as values were fairly consistent over the 12 h prior to the final observation
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