Convective Upscale Growth near Mountainous Terrain: Insights from RELAMPAGO
Abstract
Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) are a major source of global precipitation. In subtropical South America, MCSs are responsible for the majority of warm season rainfall and produce high-impact weather including flooding, frequent lightning, and hail. In Central Argentina, the Sierras de Cordoba (SDCs) is a global hotspot for deep convection initiation and rapid upscale growth to MCSs that typically occurs at a faster rate than observed in the U.S. where no topographical analog to the SDCs exists. Satellite-based inferences on the convective evolution in this region suggest backbuilding where repeated deep convection initiation occurs near the SDCs with lightning and hail production continuing into the early morning hours. The 2018-19 Remote sensing of Lightning and Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations (RELAMPAGO) field campaign deployed instrumentation to investigate complex interactions between the terrain, environmental conditions, and convection in SESA. This instrumentation network included multi-frequency dual-polarization scanning radars, fixed and mobile soundings, lidars, and lightning mapping arrays, among others, near the SDCs. Nearly continuous radar operations measured convection initiation and rapid upscale growth, as well as null periods when convection initiated over the SDCs but did not grow upscale. Frequent soundings provided an unprecedented look at the South American Low Level Jet (SALLJ), suggested in previous work to provide favorable conditions for the development and maintenance of MCSs near the SDCs, which coincided with multi-day convective outbreaks during RELAMPAGO. Using these datasets, along with reanalysis data and high-resolution model output, our goal has been to understand the factors supporting upscale growth of convection in this region and the microphysical and kinematic characteristics within these systems as they evolve near the SDCs. This presentation provides a brief overview of RELAMPAGO upscale growth cases, a look into the convective characteristics with respect to the terrain, analysis of the SALLJ, and highlights key research questions to be addressed based on these initial results from RELAMPAGO.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFM.A13D..01R