Climatology of precipitation and clouds over PANAMA
PANAMA


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 612398 snapshots of precipitation features with size > 80 km^2 have been collected over PANAMA , where 13280 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 612398 338 1334 4.8 1.5 0.18
    DJF 135895 247 938 4.2 1.4 0.04
    MAM 138370 320 1266 5.0 1.6 0.23
    JJA 165745 384 1559 5.1 1.4 0.29
    SON 172388 381 1484 4.9 1.5 0.17

  • Extreme rainy events
  • In all 612398 precipitation features, top 1% ( volumetric rain > 23984 mm/hr*km^2) rainy features contribute 61 % of total rainfall. Top 100 rainiest events observed by TRMM during 1998-2013 over PANAMA 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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