Cold small-scale cyclones over the eastern Mediterranean

Abstract

The lows in the eastern Mediterranean (EM) based on the 1982–86 ECMWF data were classified according to some indicative variables of the low center's surroundings including horizontal scale, temperature, static instability, humidity, surface latent heat flux, baroclinicity and the jetstream location. A quite distinct group of cold meso-α scale (1300 km) cyclones was identified and named the CS (cold small-scale) cyclones. These Mediterranean CS cyclones were found to be characterized by higher-than-average vorticity for cyclones with a similar scale, stronger sea latent heat fluxes but also slightly enhanced baroclinicity and near average low-tropospheric static instability.