Climatology of precipitation and clouds over MELANESIA
MELANESIA


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 3276245 snapshots of precipitation features with size > 80 km^2 have been collected over MELANESIA , where 8289 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 3276245 262 929 4.4 1.4 0.01
    DJF 842891 304 1098 4.5 1.5 0.01
    MAM 944002 253 875 4.4 1.4 0.01
    JJA 761866 236 841 4.2 1.4 0.01
    SON 727486 253 897 4.4 1.5 0.01

  • Extreme rainy events
  • In all 3276245 precipitation features, top 1% ( volumetric rain > 11671 mm/hr*km^2) rainy features contribute 64 % of total rainfall. Top 100 rainiest events observed by TRMM during 1998-2013 over MELANESIA 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.


    The copyright of figures from this website is reserved. Questions send to chuntao.liu@tamucc.edu