Climatology of precipitation and clouds over CARRIBEAN
CARRIBEAN


General info
Precipitation
System properties
Cloud
Seasonal variation
Diurnal variation
Vertical Structure
Extreme events
Time series
  • Mean properties of precipitation system

  • During 1998-2013, total 737146 snapshots of precipitation features with size > 80 km^2 have been collected over CARRIBEAN , where 5037 of them have lightning flashes inside. Some mean properties of these features are listed below:
    samples (#) mean size (km^2) mean volumetric rain (mm/hr*km^2) mean echo top (km) mean 30 dBZ ehco top (km)mean flash count (#)
    All 737146 167 572 4.1 1.5 0.04
    DJF 186930 122 394 3.3 1.2 0.01
    MAM 123722 132 429 3.6 1.2 0.02
    JJA 180677 175 596 4.5 1.7 0.06
    SON 245817 213 763 4.6 1.8 0.06

  • Extreme rainy events
  • In all 737146 precipitation features, top 1% ( volumetric rain > 6157 mm/hr*km^2) rainy features contribute 55 % of total rainfall. Top 100 rainiest events observed by TRMM during 1998-2013 over CARRIBEAN are listed here . Following figure shows the location of the precipitation feautres categorized by the volumetric rainfall.


  • Extreme intense events
  • Some of the precipitation sytems are much intense with large hails and many lightning than others (see the lists of top lightning storms. Following figure shows the location of the precipitation feautres categorized by the lightning rate and 30 dBZ echo top.


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