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Mountaintop winds as representatives of low‐level jets and precursors of downstream precipitation over Eastern China
Author(s) -
Yuan Weihua,
Zhao Siyao
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.4930
Subject(s) - climatology , precipitation , environmental science , troposphere , depth sounding , atmospheric sciences , wind speed , zonal and meridional , atmospheric circulation , meteorology , geology , geography , oceanography
The mountains of Nanyue, Huangshan, and Jiuxianshan in eastern China all have elevations >1200 m and the weather stations on the tops of these mountains directly observe atmospheric conditions in the lower troposphere. This study showed that the low‐level jets derived from a reanalysis dataset ( JRA25 ) were highly consistent with the winds measured at the mountaintop stations in May and June in the time period 2005–2010. The mountain observations were both continuous and hourly, which compensated for the limitations of the reanalysis and sounding datasets in terms of temporal resolution. The zonal and meridional winds and wind speed at Nanyue Mountain were significantly correlated with the downstream rainfall, with the highest correlation several hours before the peak of the region‐average long‐duration rainfall events (lasting >6 h). These results suggest that the winds observed by mountaintop weather stations could be used in rainfall forecasting and confirm the influence of low‐level jets on rainfall downstream.