TY - JOUR
T1 - The influence of topography on convective storm environments in the eastern United States as deduced from the HRRR
AU - Katona, Branden
AU - Markowski, Paul
AU - Alexander, Curtis
AU - Benjamin, Stanley
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by NOAA Collaborative Science, Technology, and Applied Research (CSTAR) Program Award NA14NWS4680015 made to The Pennsylvania State University. We thank Drs. Yvette Richardson and Matthew Kumjian for their suggestions during the course of this work, and we also are grateful for the comments made by Dr. Matthew Bunkers and one anonymous reviewer. This work would not have been possible without the generous computer support provided by Art Person.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Relatively little is known about how topography affects convective storms. The first step toward understanding these effects is to investigate how topography affects storm environments. Unfortunately, the effects of topography on convective environments are not easily observed directly. Instead, it is necessary to resort to using output from the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR). The HRRR's 3-km grid spacing can resolve some of the larger-scale topographic effects. Popular convective storm forecasting parameters obtained from the HRRR are averaged on convective days from February to September 2013-15. It is surmised that most of the day-to-day variability attributable to synoptic- and mesoscale meteorological influences is removed by averaging; the remaining horizontal heterogeneity in parameters related to instability and vertical wind shear is due to the hemispheric-scale meridional temperature and pressure gradient, and likely also topographic influences, especially where recurring longitudinal variations in instability, wind shear, etc. are found. Anomalies are sensitive to the ambient low-level wind direction (i.e., whether winds are locally blowing upslope or downslope), especially for parameters that depend on the low-level vertical shear. The statistical significance of local maxima and minima is demonstrated by comparing the amplitudes of the anomalies to bootstrapped estimates of the standard errors.
AB - Relatively little is known about how topography affects convective storms. The first step toward understanding these effects is to investigate how topography affects storm environments. Unfortunately, the effects of topography on convective environments are not easily observed directly. Instead, it is necessary to resort to using output from the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR). The HRRR's 3-km grid spacing can resolve some of the larger-scale topographic effects. Popular convective storm forecasting parameters obtained from the HRRR are averaged on convective days from February to September 2013-15. It is surmised that most of the day-to-day variability attributable to synoptic- and mesoscale meteorological influences is removed by averaging; the remaining horizontal heterogeneity in parameters related to instability and vertical wind shear is due to the hemispheric-scale meridional temperature and pressure gradient, and likely also topographic influences, especially where recurring longitudinal variations in instability, wind shear, etc. are found. Anomalies are sensitive to the ambient low-level wind direction (i.e., whether winds are locally blowing upslope or downslope), especially for parameters that depend on the low-level vertical shear. The statistical significance of local maxima and minima is demonstrated by comparing the amplitudes of the anomalies to bootstrapped estimates of the standard errors.
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U2 - 10.1175/WAF-D-16-0038.1
DO - 10.1175/WAF-D-16-0038.1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84994128693
SN - 0882-8156
VL - 31
SP - 1481
EP - 1490
JO - Weather and Forecasting
JF - Weather and Forecasting
IS - 5
ER -