The relationship between EMEX mesoscale precipitation feature properties and their environmental characteristics

Characteristics of the prestorm environment of Equatorial Mesoscale Experiment (EMEX) mesoscale precipitation features (MPFs) are related to properties of these systems using regression analysis. Although environmental thermodynamic parameters are poorly correlated with EMEX MPF properties (mainly because environmental thermodynamic conditions varied little among MPFs), kinematic parameters are well correlated to these properties. Lines whose environments have low-level shear (the shear between about 950 and 750 mb) exceeding 5 m s^-1 are oriented normal to the direction of this shear; lines where the low-level shear is under 5 m s^-1 are oriented along the direction of the midlevel shear (the shear between about 800 and 400 mb). -from Authors