AN ANALYSIS OF DISTRIBUTION AND MESOSCALE STRUCTURE OF PRECIPITATION ABOUT LANDFALL TROPICAL CYCLONE KOPPU (0915)

Observation from automatic weather stations, radars and TRMM satellites are employed to investigate the precipitation distribution of tropical cyclone (TC) Koppu (0915) that made landfall on Guangdong province in 2009. The results show that the precipitation of landfall TC Koppu is featured by significant asymmetry and mesoscale structure, and occurs mainly to the left of its moving path. By examining the sea surface temperature (SST), water vapor flux, Q vector, vertical wind shear of environment etc., it is found out that the distribution of SST, water vapor convergence, low-level convective ascending and vertical wind shear facilitates the TC precipitation to take place to the left of the TC moving path. The mesoscale structure separated by Barnes band-pass filter presents that the precipitation of landfall KOPPU has some organized mesoscale spiral structures, which is around the TC center and composed of the form of belts or blocks. The heavy local rainfall of landfall TC Koppu is primarily associated with the rainfall due to mesoscale spiral structure.