Table of contents

Convection and Mesoscale Convective Systems

1)

A)

Scale Characteristics of MCSs

B)

On the evolution, shape and cell movement of MCSs

C)

Propagation and movement

An example of a backbuilding MCS

ii)

i)

The original vector method

The revised vector method

E)

Exercise I.  Forecasting convective movement

F)

Exercise 2. Forecasting convective movement

G)

An ingredients based methodology for predicting convective rainfall.

D)

How long will an MCS last before dissipation

2)

Original Maddox et al. MCS arch-types associated with flash flooding

A)

Synoptic type heavy rainfall events

B)

Frontal type heavy rainfall events

C)

Mesohigh type heavy rainfall events

a)

Use of Climatological thickness

b)

“saturated thickness” concept

D)

A few thoughts about elevated convection

E)

Synoptic Scale Circulation Systems

F)

Latent heat and the generation of mesoscale convective vortices

a)

A mesoscale convective vortex exercise

i)

Rainfall rates, vertical moisture flux and precipitation efficiency

a)

Regions of weak inertial stability

3)

Western U.S. heavy rains.  Overview

A)

Maddox type I

B)

East slope of the front range events

Maddox Type IV events

E)

Hurricanes and heavy rainfall

5)

Chappell deformation type heavy rainfall event

C

F)

An example of a warm season western flash flood

Maddox type II

D

Rainfall at Landfall

A)

a)

Kraft rule of thumb

TRaP rainfall

b)

Rainfall primarily west of  track storms

B)

Rainfall primarily east of  track storms

C)

D)

East Pacific Storms

a)

Effects over southwestern U.S.

b)

Effects over Texas and Oklahoma

E)

Hurricanes and the Appalachians

G)

References

iv)

When is a forward propagating MCS likely

More on hurricanes and the Appalachians, an exercise

a)

Hugo and Fran, a quick comparison

b)

a)

A forecast exercise, using pattern recognition and ensemble guidance to predict an heavy rainfall event

West coast cold season heavy rainfall events.

4)

Role of tropical convection and atmospheric rivers

A)

Southern California pattern

B)

C)

Using climatoglical anomalies along the west coast

a)

A case study

D)

Leeside heavy rainfall events-spillover events

F

Weakening tropical storms and depressions

Heavy rainfall forecasting training manual

The information in this training package is best viewed using Internet Explorer as some animation files do not work properly using Mozilla

A big thanks to those who helped collect data for cases used in this manual (Rich Grumm and Mike Bodner in particular) and to the many authors of the journal and  preprint articles that were used to illustrate concepts discussed within the manual.  Also,  thanks to the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Digest which which were both sources of material used within various parts of the manual.  Finally,  thanks to Ed Danaher and Jim Hoke for supporting the project. 

Wes Junker,  HPC Hydrometeorological Testbed/IM Systems Group

Published in 2008