Extreme precipitation events in the south-central United States during May and June 2010: Historical perspective, role of ENSO, and trends

AbstractAn analysis of extreme daily precipitation events that occurred in the south-central United States during May and June 2010 is carried out using gridded station data and reanalysis products in use at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). Various aspects of the daily extremes are examined from a climate perspective using a 62-yr (1948–2010) period of record, including their historical ranking, common circulation features, moisture plumes, and the possible influence of ENSO. The analysis also considers how the frequency and intensity of daily extremes is changing in the United States. Each of the 2010 flash flood events examined here was associated with historic daily rainfall totals. Several of the events had meteorological conditions in common at upper and lower levels of the atmosphere, and all of the events fit well into an existing classification scheme for heavy precipitation events associated with flash flooding. Each case exhibited characteristics of the “Maya Express” fl...

[1]  R. Reynolds,et al.  The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project , 1996, Renewable Energy.

[2]  Willem A. Landman,et al.  Climate change 2007 : the physical science basis, S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, M. Marquis, K. Averyt, M.M.B. Tignor, H. LeRoy Miller, Jr. and Z. Chen (Eds.) : book review , 2010 .

[3]  P. Dirmeyer,et al.  The “Maya Express”: Floods in the U.S. Midwest , 2009 .

[4]  T. Karl,et al.  Global climate change impacts in the United States. , 2009 .

[5]  V. Kousky,et al.  Assessing objective techniques for gauge‐based analyses of global daily precipitation , 2008 .

[6]  R. Higgins,et al.  Relationships between Climate Variability and Fluctuations in Daily Precipitation over the United States , 2007 .

[7]  R. W. Higgins,et al.  An Alert Classification System for Monitoring and Assessing the ENSO Cycle , 2007 .

[8]  Kevin E. Trenberth,et al.  Trends and variability in column-integrated atmospheric water vapor , 2005 .

[9]  Fuqing Zhang,et al.  Extreme Rainfall in Texas: Patterns and Predictability , 2005 .

[10]  M. Kanamitsu,et al.  NCEP–DOE AMIP-II Reanalysis (R-2) , 2002 .

[11]  D. Stensrud,et al.  Climatology of Heavy Rain Events in the United States from Hourly Precipitation Observations , 2000 .

[12]  Paul A. Dirmeyer,et al.  Contrasting evaporative moisture sources during the drought of 1988 and the flood of 1993 , 1999 .

[13]  C. Chappell,et al.  Synoptic and Meso-α Scale Aspects of Flash Flood Events1 , 1979 .

[14]  L. L. Means.  SOME BASIC PARAMETERS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FLOOD RAINS AT CHICAGO, OCTOBER 9–12, 1954 , 1956 .