Impacts of Mountain-Plains Solenoid on Diurnal Variations of Rainfalls along the Mei-Yu Front over the East China Plains

AbstractConvection-permitting numerical experiments using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model are performed to examine the impact of a thermally driven mountain–plains solenoid (MPS) on the diurnal variations of precipitation and mesoscale convective vortices along the mei-yu front over the east China plains during 1–10 July 2007. The focus of the analyses is a 10-day simulation that used the 10-day average of the global analysis at 0000 UTC as the initial condition and the 10-day averages every 6 h as lateral boundary conditions (with diurnal variations only). Despite differences in the rainfall intensity and location, this idealized experiment successfully simulated the observed diurnal variation and eastward propagation of rainfall and mesoscale convective vortices along the mei-yu front. It was found that the upward branch of the MPS, along with the attendant nocturnal low-level jet, is primarily responsible for the midnight-to-early-morning rainfall enhancement along the mei-yu front. Th...

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