Annual Volume and Area Variations in Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Over the Eastern United States
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15 AUGUST 2010 N OGUEIRA AND KEIM 4363 Annual Volume and Area Variations in Tropical Cyclone Rainfall over the Eastern United States RICARDO C. NOGUEIRA AND BARRY D. KEIM Louisiana Office of State Climatology, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Manuscript received 22 September 2009, in final form 1 April 2010) ABSTRACT This paper examines tropical cyclone (TC) rainfall in the eastern United States from the perspective of documenting accumulated annual water volumes and areas of the precipitation. Volume is a value that merges both rainfall depth and rainfall area into a single metric for each year that can be directly compared between individual years. Area represents the total land area affected by tropical rains. These TC rainfall metrics were then compared to the ENSO and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO). Time series of annual TC water volumes show an annual average of 107 km3. The maximum volume was produced in 1985 with 405.8 km3, driven by Hurricanes Bob, Claudette, Danny, Elena, Gloria, Henri, Juan, and Kate as well as by Tropical Storms Henri and Isabel. The lowest TC volume occurred in 1978 with 8.9 km3. ENSO phases did not show any statistical correlation with TC frequency in the eastern United States. However, AMO showed a significant correlation with volume and the number of storms affecting the region. TC rainfall volume and area in the eastern United States showed a strong correlation. However, there are exceptions, whereby 1985 stands out as an exceptional volume year though the area affected is not as impressive. In contrast, 1979 is an example when TCs covered a large area with a corresponding small rainfall volume, in part because of the rapid forward movement of the storms, for example, Hurricanes David and Frederic. Since 1995, TCs have become more numerous, producing larger volumes and affecting larger areas. 1. Introduction flooding (e.g., Tropical Storm Allison in Houston, Texas, in 2001), and drought-mitigating rains (e.g., Hurricanes Tropical cyclones (TCs) affecting the eastern United Katrina and Rita across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi States are responsible for causing economic losses and in 2005). As a result, this paper will address the effects loss of human life (Blake et al. 2007). These events are of Atlantic TC rainfall (including storms in the Gulf of generally thought of as storms with coastal effects with Mexico and Mexico) in the eastern United States. high winds and surge, but they can also produce heavy Tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic expe- rainfall along the coast, as well as much farther inland. riences great variability from the intra-annual (e.g., Keim As a result, they can be an important contributor to and Robbins 2006), interannual (e.g., Bove et al. 1998), monthly and seasonal rainfall totals during hurricane and interdecadal (Gray 2007; Landsea et al. 1999) time season. Indeed, this was the case from June to Novem- scales. Clearly, no two hurricane seasons are identical, ber in the eastern United States as documented by Cry but there is some long-term predictability to tropical (1967), Knight and Davis (2007), and Nogueira and Keim activity in the North Atlantic basin that stems from (2010). However, the total volume of water and total area atmospheric teleconnections. For example, Landsea et al. affected by Atlantic TC rainfall in the eastern United (1999) point out that the overall TC activity is associated States has never been determined. Implications of TC with North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs)— rainfall input over land include river basin flooding (e.g., termed the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)— from Hurricane Camille in Virginia in 1969), urban flash combined with other modulating environmental factors such as El Nin˜o–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). An em- Corresponding author address: Ricardo Nogueira, Louisiana pirical relationship between Atlantic SSTs and TC activity State University, E348 Howe-Russell, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. was identified, whereby warmer Atlantic SSTs enhance E-mail: [email protected] the development of TCs (Shapiro and Goldenberg 1998; DOI: 10.1175/2010JCLI3443.1 Ó 2010 American Meteorological Society Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/25/21 02:59 AM UTC 4364 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 23 Molinari and Mestas-Nun˜ ez 2003) and landfalls in the Larson et al. (2005) found this to be reasonable. Rainfall eastern United States (Keim et al. 2007). Furthermore, totals, however, tend to be larger on the right side of the El Nin˜ o events have been shown to reduce TC activity track because of the onshore flow of moisture (Jones through enhanced upper-tropospheric westerly wind 1987; Powell 1987) and smaller on the left side because shear over the Caribbean Basin and the equatorial At- of the entrainment of drier air from the continent. How- lantic, while La Nin˜a events increase activity (Gray 1984; ever, when TCs begin interacting with extratropical Bove et al. 1998). Hence, the interaction between AMO weather systems, rainfall patterns get increasingly asym- and ENSO looms particularly large regarding the tropical metric (Larson et al. 2005). The 500-km criterion is an storm and hurricane effects in the eastern United States. operational definition to reduce the influences of these Therefore, the objectives of this study are as follows: systems. TC-related precipitation was considered as any pre- 1) to determine the annual volume of rain produced cipitation produced by landfalling tropical storms and by tropical storms and hurricanes over the eastern hurricanes as well as for those storms that tracked within United States; an offshore distance of 500 km (determined by the Arc- 2) to determine the total area that received tropical- Map buffer), whereas land lies within the tropical cyclone storm- and hurricane-induced precipitation in the rain swath. The 6-hourly data available through the Na- eastern United States each year; and tional Hurricane Center (NHC) in the Atlantic basin 3) to determine if teleconnections (AMO and ENSO) Hurricane Database (HURDAT; Jarvinen et al. 1984) are associated with the annual volumes of rain as well was used to determine the timing and location of the as the annual area sizes of the eastern United States storm to properly appropriate the rainfall. If a storm was that are affected by the tropical cyclones. denoted in this database as either subtropical, extra- tropical, or as a tropical depression, then the associated rainfall with those systems was no longer included in this 2. Data and methods analysis. Remnant lows can in some instances produce Separating rainfall into tropical and nontropical cy- very high rainfall totals (i.e., remnants of Tropical Storm clone components is a challenging task, as TCs can pro- Amelia in 1978 or Tropical Storm Erin in 2007); however, duce rainfall for hundreds of kilometers from their centers these systems often interact with extratropical weather (Larson et al. 2005). However, previous research provides systems as well and thus were not included in this anal- guidance regarding the size of the rainfall swath produced ysis. Compared to other studies that include remnants by TCs. For example, Cry (1967) considered rainfall to be of tropical storms (i.e., Knight and Davis 2007), these tropical within the limits of the TC circulation ranging methods would underestimate rainfall totals. We also from less than 100 to more than 800 km, depending on note that prior to 1968, there is no designation of sub- each storm’s rainfall characteristics. Rao and Macarthur tropical storms in HURDAT, and a small percentage of (1994) gridded each storm’s rainfall swath and deter- events that would now be subtropical are designated as mined the rainfall within each grid cell. Gleason (2006) tropical (Landsea et al. 2008). As performed by Cry used a simple partition method, classifying any rainfall (1967), rainfall data were divided into two subsets: one #600 km from the center of the storm as ‘‘tropical.’’ called tropical rainfall (TR), which includes the accu- Englehart and Douglas (2001) found that in 90% of cases, mulated TC daily rainfall for each site for each month, TC rainfall occurs within 600 km from the center. In the and the other called nontropical rainfall (NTR), which is end, they used a 550-km radius from the center of each derived as the difference between TR and U.S. Histor- storm to assign surface weather stations as receiving TC- ical Climatology Network (USHCN) monthly precipita- derived rainfall data. Knight and Davis (2007) included tion totals at each site. all rainfall data associated with the tropical storm, even Rainfall data from 1960 to 2007 were extracted from after becoming extratropical or associating with a fron- monthly rainfall observations from the USHCN monthly tal system. This approach yields a relatively high con- precipitation and temperature data (Williams et al. 2007). tribution of TC rainfall in monthly totals. This dataset contains 1221 high-quality stations from the In this study, a conservative approach was used in U.S. Cooperative Observer Network within the 48 con- considering tropical rainfall related to the distance of the tiguous United States, and it has undergone extensive center of TC. Using guidance from these previous efforts, quality assurance checks and includes only the most re- a500-km(;310 miles) radius centered on each storm was liable and unbiased long-term records. Of the 1221 sta- used to delineate the area affected by tropical precipita- tions, monthly precipitation data were obtained from tion. The TC rain shield was assumed symmetric around a subset of these data totaling 717 stations in the eastern the storm center, and sensitivity analysis performed by United States (Fig. 1). TC rainfall contributions are less Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/25/21 02:59 AM UTC 15 AUGUST 2010 N OGUEIRA AND KEIM 4365 FIG.