Mesoscale Processes for Super Heavy Rainfall of Typhoon Morakot (2009) Over Southern Taiwan
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Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 345–361, 2011 www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/345/2011/ Atmospheric doi:10.5194/acp-11-345-2011 Chemistry © Author(s) 2011. CC Attribution 3.0 License. and Physics Mesoscale processes for super heavy rainfall of Typhoon Morakot (2009) over Southern Taiwan C.-Y. Lin1, H.-m. Hsu2, Y.-F. Sheng1, C.-H. Kuo3, and Y.-A. Liou4 1Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 2National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA 3Department of Geology, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan 4Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan Received: 20 April 2010 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 27 May 2010 Revised: 10 December 2010 – Accepted: 29 December 2010 – Published: 14 January 2011 Abstract. Within 100 h, a record-breaking rainfall, typhoon Morakot (2009) traversed the island of Taiwan over 2855 mm, was brought to Taiwan by typhoon Morakot in Au- 5 days (6–10 August 2009). It was the heaviest total rain- gust 2009 resulting in devastating landslides and casualties. fall for a single typhoon impinging upon the island ever Analyses and simulations show that under favorable large- recorded. This typhoon has set many new records in Tai- scale situations, this unprecedented precipitation was caused wan. Nine of the ten highest daily rainfall accumulations first by the convergence of the southerly component of the in the historical record were made by typhoon Morakot, ac- pre-existing strong southwesterly monsoonal flow and the cording to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB). Among them, northerly component of the typhoon circulation. Then the Wei-Liou San station (elevation about 710 m in Southern Tai- westerly component of southwesterly flow pushed the highly wan; 22.82◦ N and 120.66◦ E) recorded as high as 1403 mm moist air (mean specific humidity >16 g/kg between 950 and rainfall in one day, 8 August. Table 1 provides a list of 700 hPa from NCEP GFS data set) eastward against the Cen- the 10 highest rainfall accumulations by typhoons during the tral Mountain Range, and forced it to lift in the preferred last 50 years in which two types of typhoon passages were area. From the fine-scale numerical simulation, not only did characterized. One traverses the Central Mountain Range the convergence itself provide the source of the heavy rain- (CMR), the primary island mountain, in the summer (June fall when it interacted with the topography, but also convec- to August), and the other one passes nearby the island with tive cells existed within the typhoon’s main rainband. The northeasterly monsoon flow in the fall (September to Novem- convective cells were in the form of small rainbands perpen- ber). Morakot is the first typhoon simultaneously accompa- dicular to the main one, and propagated as wave trains down- nied with a strong southwesterly monsoon and it generated wind. As the main rainband moved northward and reached 2 to 3 times more mean daily rainfall than the nine other the southern CMR, convective cells inside the narrow conver- strongest typhoons during the last 50 years (Table 1). Ty- gence zone to the south and those to the north as wave trains, phoon Morakot also was responsible for a vast area, over the both rained heavily as they were lifted by the west-facing western hilly regions of the Central Mountain Range, receiv- mountain slopes. Those mesoscale processes were responsi- ing more than the one year average precipitation (2000 mm) ble for the unprecedented heavy rainfall total that accompa- in just 3 days (7–9 August). nied this typhoon. This unprecedented rainfall accumulation and area cov- ered are bound to cause disasters. In just three days, there were enormous landslides triggered in mountainous terrain 1 Introduction and severe flooding blanketed large areas of lowlands. One particular landslide occurred in the early morning on 9 Au- Over 2885 mm (112.4 inches) rainfall in 100 h, much more gust, burying the entire village of Xiaolin (elevation around than the mean annual precipitation, was recorded at A-Li 345 m located at valley, 120.65◦ E and 23.17◦ N, in Kaohs- Shan station (23.5◦ N and 120.8◦ E, 2413 m in elevation) as ing county in Southern Taiwan), killing more than 600 peo- ple in this village alone. The area damaged by the land- slides, estimated by satellite FORMOSAT-2 (http://www. Correspondence to: C.-Y. Lin satimagingcorp.com/satellite-sensors/formosat-2.html), was ([email protected]) 241.7 acres. The village of Xiaolin with nearly 394 houses Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 426 stations of rain gauge (m) a) 25N 24N 23N 346 C.-Y. Lin et al.: Mesoscale22N processes for super heavy rainfall of Typhoon Morakot 426 stations of rain gauge 120E 121E 122E 123E (m) a) 25N ZonalTrack Mean of Typhoon (120~121) Morakot of OBS Precipitation (mm/hr) 35N b) 25N c) 24N 30N N 24N 25N C 23N 23N 20N S 22N 22N 15N 120E 121E 122E 123E 115E 2Aug 120E 3Aug 125E 4Aug 5Aug 130E 6Aug 135E7Aug 8Aug 140E 9Aug 10Aug 11Aug Figure 1 Track of Typhoon Morakot 35N 96 hrs observation rainfall (mm) b) Zonal Mean (120~121) of OBS Precipitation (mm/hr) 25N d) 30N 25N c) N 24N 25N 24N C 23N 20N 23N S 22N 22N 15N 115E 120E 125E 130E 135E 140E Figure 1 2Aug 3Aug 4Aug 5Aug 6Aug 7Aug 8Aug 9Aug 10Aug 11Aug 119E 120E 121E 122E 123E 96 hrs observation rainfall (mm) Figure 1 continued Fig. 1. (a) Spatial distribution of the 426 rain gage stations monitoring network (red dots) and topographic elevation over Taiwan. The black dashed rectangle is25N the area for which rainfall is displayed in (c) . (b) The best track for Typhoon Morakot41 (2009). Colored solid (open) typhoon symbol indicatesd) the best track and the intensity of typhoon at 6-h intervals. (c) Spatial and temporal variations of the average rainfall in 0.1 deg latitude increments between 120 and 121◦ E over western Taiwan (d) 96-h rainfall accumulation from 00:00 UTC 06 to 00:00 UTC 10 August 2009. 24N and the nearby woodland were covered by mud completely. N–S (Fig. 1a) with an average terrain height of about 2000 m 23N Roughly NT$16.4 billion (∼US$ 0.5 billion) in agricultural (Chen and Li, 1995; Lin and Chen, 2002) and a few steep damage alone has been estimated over Taiwan because of peaks of almost 4 km. It is well known that damages are this tragic event. The official estimate of all the damage strongly related to the location of the typhoon’s landfall and 22N and reconstruction costs is beyond NT$ 100 billion (∼US$ interactions between its circulation and the CMR (Brand and 3.03billion). Blelloch 1974; Wu and Kurihara, 1996; Wu and Kuo, 1999; 119E 120E 121E 122E 123E Lin et al., 2001; Chien et al., 2008; Ge et al., 2010). Pre- As typhoons pass over the island of Taiwan and its Figure 1 continued vious studies pointed out that enormous amounts of rainfall vicinity, the local rainfall is strongly affected by the is- occur and are enhanced due to mountain lifting when a ty- land mountains, particularly the Central41 Mountain Range phoon passes over the CMR (Wu and Kuo, 1999; Lin et al., (CMR). The CMR occupies about two-thirds of Taiwan’s 2001, 2002; Wu et al., 2002; Yang et al., 2008). Moreover, it land mass (300 km · 100 km), and is oriented approximately Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 345–361, 2011 www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/345/2011/ C.-Y. Lin et al.: Mesoscale processes for super heavy rainfall of Typhoon Morakot 347 Table 1. Record of the 10 highest typhoon rainfall accumulations during the last 50 years. Stations’ elevation for A-Li station, An Pu and Chu Tze Hu are 2413 m, 826 m and 607 m, respectively (TC: Tropical Cyclone, NE: Northeasterly, SW: southwesterly). Typhoon name Intensity classification* Accumulation rainfall Casualties including (CWB warning period) Characteristics in mm (duration) station Death and missing MORAKOT Intermediate 2855 mm (100 h) 695 5–10 August 2009 TC Traversing CMR+ SW A-Li Shan monsoon FLOSSIE Intermediate 2162 mm (120 h) 105 1–7 October 1969 TC nearby + NE monsoon An Pu HERB Strong 1987 mm (48 h) 73 29 July–1 August 1996 TC Traversing CMR A-Li Shan LYNN Strong 1497 mm (96 h) 63 23–27 October 1987 TC nearby + NE monsoon Chu Tze Hu SINLAKU Strong 1458 mm (96 h) 21 9–17 September 2008 TC Traversing CMR A-Li Shan ORA Intermediate 1434 mm (96 h) 7 11–14 October 1978 TC nearby + NE monsoon Chu Tze Hu GLORIA Strong 1433 mm (96 h) 363 8–13 September 1963 TC nearby + NE monsoon A-Li Shan NARI Intermediate 1304 mm (72 h) 104 6–20 September 2001 TC Traversing CMR Chu Tze Hu HAITANG Strong 1216 mm (72 h) 15 16–20 July 2005 TC Traversing CMR A-Li Shan MINDULLE Intermediate 1182 mm (72 h) 45 28 June–2 July 2004 TC Traversing CMR A-Li Shan * The CWB’s classification of typhoons is based on the maximum wind speed: the light typhoon: 17.2∼32.6 m/s; the intermediate typhoon: 32.7∼50.9 m/s; the severe typhoon: =51 m/s is common that the strong southwesterly flow follows the de- processes was responsible for the unprecedented heavy rain- parture of an invading typhoon and brings heavy rainfall over fall. In fact, this combination of processes can be revealed central or Southern Taiwan (Lee et al., 2008; Chien et al., in large-scale meteorological analysis data when analyzed in 2008).