Warm-Season Afternoon Precipitation Peak in the Central Bay of Bengal: Process-Oriented Diagnostics

Past studies have indicated that precipitation over tropical open oceans generally peaks in the early morning. However, an intriguing departure from this pattern is observed in the central Bay of Bengal (CBoB), where rainfall exhibits a distinct afternoon peak during the South Asian summer monsoon season. By using a novel satellite-based cloud classification and tracking data set, we found that more than 75% of the afternoon rainfall (15–17 LST) over the CBoB comes from mesoscale convective systems (MCSs). Most of the MCSs contributing to the CBoB afternoon rainfall peak originate either locally over the CBoB or near the west and east coasts of the BoB, in contrast to the northern BoB as highlighted in previous studies. Analyses show that MCSs initiated near coastlines are primarily influenced by land-sea breezes, whereas MCSs initiated over the BoB open ocean during early morning are strongly associated with diurnal radiative forcings. In addition, there are clear diurnal propagating MCS initiation signals from the west and north coastlines of the BoB to the CBoB, which are related to diurnal gravity waves emitted from the coastlines. The thermodynamic conditions conducive to MCS initiation over different sub-regions of the BoB are also investigated. No systematic differences found in environmental convective available potential energy between days with and without MCS initiation. However, over most sub-regions, days with MCS initiation generally have higher total column water vapor than days without MCS initiation. This difference suggests that the lower-free-tropospheric moisture content plays an important role in MCS initiation over the BoB.