A Regional View of Easterly Waves over Pacific and Atlantic Ocean: Tropical Cyclogenesis Thresholds and Rainfall

Abstract:

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are well known as important contributors to summer precipitation over Intra America Seas (IAS) and the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPA). They contribute up to 30% in the Caribbean Region, Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Pacific during high active seasons. Although Easterly Waves (EWs) are considered high-impact weather phenomena, their regional importance in summer rainfall and regional differences in their development into TCs remains uncertain. This study quantifies the contribution of EWs to summer rainfall. We find that EWs contributed up to 50% of summer rainfall over IAS and EPA during the period 1980-2013. In addition, this study demonstrates regional dependency of the structure of EWs that develop into hurricanes and the thresholds of tropical cyclogenesis. Using ERA-Interim data, vorticity at three levels (850, 700 and 600), Column Integrated Heating, equivalent potential temperature, sea surface temperature, wind speed, stretching radius and integrated moisture flux were analyzed to investigate regional dependency of thresholds for tropical cyclogenesis during the 1980-2013 period. We found that tropical cyclogenesis occurred under different regional environments over Pacific and Atlantic Ocean and the structure of EWs changed depending on the basin. This research can be relevant to improve operational forecast of tropical cyclogenesis since thresholds are used to indicate where and when a TC formation can occur.