Lower Tropospheric Warm Air Advection Patterns Associated with Heavy Rainfall over the Appalachian Region ∗

∗We would like to thank Kathleen Parker, Timothy Beach, Albert Parker, David Lee, David Stooksbury, and Julie Winkler for their helpful suggestions in the earlier stages of this work. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number SES-9105628.

A synoptic climatology of warm season heavy rainfall is developed from patterns of 850 mb thermal advection over the Appalachian region. Heavy rain events are categorized according to the position and orientation of a warm air advection (WAA) ridge, a feature found in nearly two-thirds of the events. Numerous study events occur within the conditionally unstable region of the WAA ridge. In fact, numerous occurrences of heavy rainfall are tied to a superpositioning of a WAA and air mass instability ridge in the vicinity or upstream of the heavy rain area.

Key Words:

• precipitation
• warm air advection
• synoptic climatology

Notes

∗We would like to thank Kathleen Parker, Timothy Beach, Albert Parker, David Lee, David Stooksbury, and Julie Winkler for their helpful suggestions in the earlier stages of this work. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number SES-9105628.