Large-scale characteristics of landfalling tropical cyclones with abrupt intensity change

Abstract

Data from the China Meteorological Administration and ERA-Interim are used to examine the environmental characteristics of landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) with abrupt intensity change. The results show that, of all 657 landfalling TCs during 1979–2017, 71%, 70% and 65% of all landfalling TDs, TSs and TYs, respectively, intensify. Of all the 16595 samples, 4.0% and 0.2% of typhoons and tropical storms, respectively, experience over-water rapid intensification (RI) process during their life cycle. Meanwhile, 4.5% and 0.6% of typhoons and tropial storms, respectively, undergo over-water rapid decay (RD). These two kinds of cases, i.e., RI and RD, are used to analyze their associated large-scale conditions. Comparisons show that the RI cases are generally on the south side of the strong western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH); warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sufficient water vapor fluxes existing in RI samples is a dominant feature that is conducive to the development of TCs. Also, the moderate low-level relative vorticity is favorable for TC intensification. On the contrary, the RD TCs are located on the west side of the WPSH; significant decreasing SSTs and low-level water vapor transport may synergistically contribute to RD. Simultaneously, low-level relative vorticity seems to be unfavorable for the development of TCs.

Keywords

landfalling tropical cyclone / abrupt intensity change / environmental factors / dynamic composite analysis

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA20060503), the Fund of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhanjiang) (No. ZJW-2019-08), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2018YFA0605604 and 2017YFC1501802), the Project of Enhancing School with Innovation of Guangdong Ocean University (No.230419053), the Projects (Platforms) for Construction of Top-ranking Disciplines of Guangdong Ocean University (No.231419022), the Young Innovative Talents Project in Common Colleges and Universities in Guangdong Province (No. 2016KQNCX061). We also thank the CMA, NOAA and ECMWF for the availability of the data used in this work.

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