Tropical Cyclone Rainfall in the Observations, Reanalysis and ARPEGE Simulations in the North Atlantic Basin

Abstract

In this chapter, we performed a climatological study of the tropical cyclone (TC) precipitation in the satellite observations and the reanalysis from the ECMWF and NCEP/NCAR centers over the North Atlantic (NATL) basin. Using the recently developed best track IBTrACS (Kruk et al. 2009; Knapp et al. 2009) we derived the mean daily TCs rainfall within 10∘ ×10∘ box around the center of the TCs, the fraction of TCs rainfall to total rainfall and the TCs precipitation efficiency (TCPE). These variables were used to assess the ability of the reanalysis to represent the impact of TCs in altering the total rainfall over the North Atlantic basin. The main results show that: The maximum of cyclonic precipitation is located in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, for the observation and the reanalysis. TCs contribute to a maximum of precipitation (between 15∘ and 25∘N) over the Southern Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the West Atlantic Ocean for the observation and the reanalysis. The most efficient TCs are located in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the West Atlantic Ocean for the observation and the reanalysis.