Modification of Mesoscale Convective Systems Traversing the Maritime Continent

This project aims to advance our understanding and improve the prediction of convection traversing the complex geography of the Maritime Continent in collaboration with the PISTON DRI. Convectively active regimes associated with intraseasonal oscillations over the equatorial tropics, such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), are comprised of individual organized convective elements, rather than spatially expansive widespread storms. These individual convective elements feed back onto the larger convectively active envelope, influencing its overall intensity and propagation. Better understanding and improved predictions of the individual mesoscale convective elements will lead to more accurate spatial and temporal predictions of the larger intraseasonal oscillations. The proposed project uses convective permitting numerical modeling to (1) Identify and quantify the storm-scale processes controlling the eastward movement of convection over the complex archipelago terrain (2) Quantify the influence of the elevated terrain and/verses coastal boundaries on eastward propagating convection. A third objective is to quantify the relationship between the ambient environment and MCS island crossing success using observations gathered during PISTON. Anticipated benefits from this project include the identification of physical processes important to both short-term regional forecasts of MCSs and the prediction of intraseasonal oscillations.