Historic variation of warm-season rainfall,Southern Colorado Plateau,Southwestern U.S.A.

Rainfall during the warm season (June 15–October 15) is the most important of the year in terms of flood generation and erosion in rivers of the southern Colorado Plateau. Fluvial erosion of the plateau decreased substantially in the 1930s to early 1940s, although the cause of this change has not been linked to variation of warm-season rainfall. This study shows that a decrease of warmseason rainfall frequency was coincident with and probably caused the decreased erosion by reducing the probability of large floods. Warm-season rainfall results from isolated thunderstorms associated with the Southwestern monsoon and from dissipating tropical cyclones and (or) cutoff low-pressure systems that produce widespread, general rainfall. Warm-season rainfall is typically normal to above normal during warm El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions. A network of 24 long-term precipitation gages was used to develop an index of standardized rainfall anomalies for the southern Colorado Plateau for the period 1900–85. The index shows that the occurrence of anomalously dry years increased and the occurrence of anomalously wet years decreased after the early 1930s, although 1939–41, 1972, and 1980–84 were anomalously wet. The decrease in warm-season rainfall after the early 1930s is related to a decrease in rainfall from dissipating tropical cyclones, shifts in the incidence of meridional circulation in the upper atmosphere, and variability of ENSO conditions.     

A note on the occurrence of wind direction differences below 1 km during episodes of extreme vertical Windshear for Berlin,Germany and Centreville,Alabama, U.S.A.

Summary Windshear is critical to aeronautical activities such as aircraft takeoffs and landings and the ascending and descending phase phases of missile launch. The probability of extreme vertical windshear below 1 km at Centreville, Alabama (U.S.A.) and Berlin, Germany has been studied. Windshear (total vector difference) was derived from radiosonde ascents using both windspeed and wind direction differences between two altitudes. The wind direction differences are used to compute the angular shear magnitude.The wind direction differences between the surface and specified altitude as well as the contribution of the angular shear magnitude to the total vector difference during episodes of extreme vertical windshear were quantified. For example, wind direction changes of 60 degrees or more for cases of extreme windshear (windshear > 15m/s per 900m) in the layer surface to 900m occurred with a relative frequency of only 8% at Berlin in contrast to 34% at Centreville. The ratio of the angular shear magnitude to the total vector difference squared (times 100%) exceeded 40% five times more often at Centreville as compared with Berlin for this layer. Analysis using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test confirmed that these differences (between the two locations) in wind direction change during episodes of extreme windshear are statistically significant. Backing vs. veering winds in the boundary-layer and the 500 mb wind directions are discussed in order to relate the occurrence of extreme vertical windshear to characteristics of two contrasting geographic locations, one in the transition region between sub-tropics and mid-latitudes (Centreville), and the other well-entrenched in the westerlies (Berlin).There were considerable day-night differences in the occurrence of extreme shears at Centreville. For example, windshear > 10m/s per 600 m in the layer surface to 600 m were more than three times as frequent at 1200 UTC (morning) than at 0000 UTC (evening). This is due to larger wind direction differences in the boundary-layer in addition to the nocturnal rise in windspeed at 300 m (low-level jet).It should also be noted that extreme windshear near the surface was not always associated with strong surface winds. Vertical windshear below 1 km was found to increase with increasing surface windspeed up until 98% probability. Above 98% probability this relationship breaks down, as the second largest maximum windshear in the layer surface to 900 m was observed for a surface wind of 3 m/s at Berlin.The seasonal variation of vertical windshear below 1 km was also illustrated, indicating winter to be the season of maximum shears, summer the season of minimum shears. An exception was that above 99% probability the shear in the spring usually exceeded the winter shear.With 14 Figures