Editorial Type:
Article
Article Type:
Research Article

The Definition and Characteristics of Regional Rainfall Events Demonstrated by Warm Season Precipitation over the Beijing Plain

Rucong Yu State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather (LASW), Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

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Haoming Chen Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

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Wei Sun State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Print Publication:
01 Feb 2015
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-14-0086.1
Page(s):
396–406
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Abstract

In this study, a regional rainfall event (RRE) is defined by observed rainfall at multiple, well-distributed stations in a given area. Meanwhile, a regional rainfall coefficient (RRC), which could be used to classify local rain (LR) and regional rain (RR) in the given area, is defined to quantify the spatiotemporal variation of rainfall events. As a key parameter describing the spread of rainfall, RRC, together with duration and intensity, presents an effort to explore more complete spatiotemporal organization and evolution of RREs. Preliminary analyses of RREs over the Beijing plain reveal new, interesting characteristics of rainfall. The RRC of RRE increases with longer duration and stronger intensity. Most of the RREs with maximum peak rainfall intensity below 2 mm h−1 or duration shorter than 3 h have RRC less than 0.4, indicating that these events are not uniformly spread over the region. Thus, they are reasonably classified into LR. RREs with RRC above 0.5 could be classified into RR, which usually lasts longer than 4 h and has primary peak rainfall occurring from 1700 to 0600 LST. For most of the intense long-duration RR, evolutions of RRC and rainfall intensity are not consistent. The RRC reaches a maximum a few hours after the peak intensity was reached. The results of this study enrich the understanding of rainfall processes and provide new insight into understanding and quantifying the space–time characteristics of rainfall. These findings have great potential to further evaluate cloud and precipitation physics as well as their parameterizations in numerical models.

Corresponding author address: Dr. Rucong Yu, China Meteorological Administration, No. 46, Zhongguancun South Street, Beijing 100081, China. E-mail: yrc@cma.gov.cn

Abstract

In this study, a regional rainfall event (RRE) is defined by observed rainfall at multiple, well-distributed stations in a given area. Meanwhile, a regional rainfall coefficient (RRC), which could be used to classify local rain (LR) and regional rain (RR) in the given area, is defined to quantify the spatiotemporal variation of rainfall events. As a key parameter describing the spread of rainfall, RRC, together with duration and intensity, presents an effort to explore more complete spatiotemporal organization and evolution of RREs. Preliminary analyses of RREs over the Beijing plain reveal new, interesting characteristics of rainfall. The RRC of RRE increases with longer duration and stronger intensity. Most of the RREs with maximum peak rainfall intensity below 2 mm h−1 or duration shorter than 3 h have RRC less than 0.4, indicating that these events are not uniformly spread over the region. Thus, they are reasonably classified into LR. RREs with RRC above 0.5 could be classified into RR, which usually lasts longer than 4 h and has primary peak rainfall occurring from 1700 to 0600 LST. For most of the intense long-duration RR, evolutions of RRC and rainfall intensity are not consistent. The RRC reaches a maximum a few hours after the peak intensity was reached. The results of this study enrich the understanding of rainfall processes and provide new insight into understanding and quantifying the space–time characteristics of rainfall. These findings have great potential to further evaluate cloud and precipitation physics as well as their parameterizations in numerical models.

Corresponding author address: Dr. Rucong Yu, China Meteorological Administration, No. 46, Zhongguancun South Street, Beijing 100081, China. E-mail: yrc@cma.gov.cn
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