Mesoscale air motion and thermodynamics predict heavy hourly U.S. precipitation.

ABSTRACT: Predicting heavy precipitation remains scientifically challenging. Here we combine Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) temperature and moisture soundings and weather forecast winds to predict the formation of thermodynamic conditions favourable for convection in the hours following satellite overpasses. Here we treat AIRS retrievals as air parcels that are moved adiabatically to generate time-varying fields. Over much of the Central-Eastern Continental U.S. during the non-winter months of 2019-2020, our derived convective available potential energy alone predicts intense precipitation. For hourly precipitation above the all-hours 99.9^th percentile, performance is marginally lower than forecasts from a convection permitting model, but similar to the ERA5 reanalysis and substantia

SUBMITTER: Richardson MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11364509 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature