Mesoscale Numerical Study of Quasi-Stationary Convective System Over Jeddah in November 2009
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Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2013, 3, 73-86 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/acs.2013.31010 Published Online January 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/acs) Mesoscale Numerical Study of Quasi-Stationary Convective System over Jeddah in November 2009 Mohammed Haggag1,2*, Hesham El-Badry2,3 1Hydraulics and Irrigation Department, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt 2Resources and Environment Department, Dar Al-Handasah (Shair and Partners), Cairo, Egypt 3Irrigation and Hydraulics Department, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt Email: *[email protected] Received July 18, 2012; revised August 20, 2012; accepted August 28, 2012 ABSTRACT 25 November 2009 is an unforgettable day for the people in Jeddah, the second largest city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). On that day, Jeddah turned into a disaster zone following a short heavy rainfall event that triggered flash floods leaving 122 fatalities and considerable losses. Numerical experiments using the Pennsylvania State University- National Center for Atmospheric research mesoscale meteorological model (MM5) have been performed to investigate the event. It was caused by a short quasi-stationary mesoscale convective system that developed over Jeddah and lasted for about 8 hours. Rainfall totals computed by the model exceeded 400 mm in some localities in the southern part of Jeddah city and to the north of Jeddah in Thuwal city. The limited available observed rainfall totals, at King Abdul Aziz International Airport and wadiQaws rain gauges, and Jeddah’s weather radar observations corroborates the ability of the model to reproduce the spatial and temporal characteristics of the rainfall event. A synoptic environment characterized by warm Red Sea surface temperatures and high humidity in the low levels of the troposphere. A stationary anticy- clone centered over the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula concentrated the water vapour flow to a narrow passage over Jeddah. Simulation results suggested that the development of a mesolow by latent heat release, as well as cyclogenesis induced by Al Hejaz escarpments, could have played an important role in enhancing the event by providing low-level convergence and enhanced upslope winds, and upper level atmospheric instability. Keywords: Jeddah Floods; MM5; Mesoscale; Cyclogenesis; Orography; Quasi-Stationary; Convection 1. Introduction stretch of the coast, the Al Hejaz region, is characterised by shallow coastal waters, a very narrow coastal plain In less than fourteen months (from November 2009 to and steep slope of the Mountains. Around Jeddah, the January 2011), the city of Jeddah in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) went under water three times. The first Al-Hejaz escarpment ridge rarely rises above 2100 m, was on 25 November 2009 when the city experienced its whilst the middle and southern portions (Asir escarp- worst disaster in fifty years, 122 people were killed and ment and Al-Yemen escarpment) can reach heights over 350 were reported missing. The second time was on De- 3300 m. cember 30 in 2010 with 4 people killed. The last flash The western region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia flood event took place in January 2011 leaving at least 11 (KSA) and especially the city of Jeddah (21˚30'N people killed. 39˚11'E) (Figure 1) is frequently subject to heavy rainfall The topography of the western area of Arabian Penin- events that trigger hazardous flash floods. They mainly sula (refer to Figure 1(a) for location) makes the region occur during late autumn and winter affecting a wide especially prone to flash-flood events. The mountain range of ephemeral stream systems (wadis) located in the system adjacent to the coast of the Red Sea acts as a area (Figure 1(b)). Jeddah is located along the coast of natural barrier to the warm moist Red Sea air, inducing the Red Sea and it is the major urban center of the west- the generation of intense rainfall rates with high spatial ern KSA. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the and temporal variability. Late autumn and winter bring largest seaport at the Red Sea and the second largest city relatively frequent convective events to the central part in KSA after the capital city (Riyadh). Figure 1 shows a of the eastern Red Sea coast (Figure 1 for location). This recent high resolution multispectral satellite image of Jeddah city (GeoEye-1, 0.4 m resolution) that show the *Corresponding author. vertical and horizontal expansion of the city and the Copyright © 2013 SciRes. ACS 74 M. HAGGAG, H. El-BADRY (a) (b) Figure 1. (a) The black filled rectangle indicates the location of main affected cities located in the western part of Saudi Ara- bia in the middle zone of the Red Sea (Jeddah, Thuwal and Rabigh). (b) A high resolution multispectral satellite image of Jeddah city (GeoEye-1, 0.4 m resolution) showing the vertical and horizontal expansion of the city and the mountains to the east. The area surrounded by the black rectangle is used for before and after flood comparison in Figure 2. mountains to the east. Jeddah is the principal gateway to mm/year). The flash flood intensity was more severe in Makkah, the Islam’s holiest city, which able-bodied the southern and eastern parts of the city indicating higher Muslims are required to visit at least once in their life- rainfall intensities compared to that observed at Jeddah time and perform a pilgrimage. airport. The event produced one of the most catastrophic In this paper, we consider the exceptional case of the flash floods in the recent history of Jeddah. This paper is quasi-stationary convective system over Jeddah on 25 focused on the analysis of the storm event on 25 No- November 2009. The system persisted for 8 h, remaining vember 2009. The choice of November 2009 event was nearly stationary during all the time over Jeddah. Accu- motivated by the amount of cumulated precipitation and mulated rainfall observed in the northern part of the city, the scale of resulting damages in the region. at Jeddah airport in 24 h, exceeded 140 mm, being higher Mesoscale numerical simulations are often used to than twice the annual mean rainfall rate in Jeddah (~50 identify the potential mesoscale mechanism that could Copyright © 2013 SciRes. ACS M. HAGGAG, H. El-BADRY 75 explain the extraordinary stationarity and efficiency of hydrostatic models, based on higher horizontal spatial the mesoscale system. In addition, the simulations are grid, were more representative to the observed rainfall useful to explore the value of the mesoscale numerical fields compared to the results of the hydrostatic models. models for operational forecasting of this type of events [6] carried out a study of two extreme rainfall events in in the Arabian Peninsula region. It should be noted that, eastern Spain over the Valencia region in November to date, despite of the frequent occurrence of similar 1987 (with 800 mm rainfall in 24 h) and in October 1982 storm events in the region (Jeddah) in the last few years, (with 400 mm rainfall in 12 h). The numerical analysis this paper would be the first investigation of the mesoscale using the MM5 model indicated that both events were mechanisms responsible for such kind of natural hazard characterized by quasi-stationary MCS. In both cases, the events in the region. MM5 model accurately predicted the spatial coverage as Flash floods after short-intense rainfall events are one well as the duration of the mesoscale events; however, of the most frequent type dangerous natural hazard phe- the model significantly underestimated the storm total nomena in the western KSA. In arid regions, flash floods precipitation. [2] investigated the feasibility of real time form rapidly and flow down over watercourses that are forecasting of flash floods over the Spanish Mediterra- initially dry. Flood occurrences are complex since they nean area using the capabilities of the hydrological model depend on geological and morphological characteristics forced by rainfall fields from a mesoscale atmospheric of the catchments as well as on the meteo-hydrological model. [2] focused on the flash flood event of June 2010 phenomena such as rainfall, evaporation, groundwater in the Llobregat basin in Catalonia region employing the storage and surface runoff [1]. In the western KSA, the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Hydrological Model- interplay of typical cold-season synoptic conditions with ling System (HEC-HMS) and the MM5 model. The main orographic and thermal forcing produces significant con- finding of that study was the MM5 driven runoff simula- vection along the coast and the mountain range. In this tion shows a reasonable reproduction of the observed context, serious damage can occur when intense convec- discharge at the basin’s outlet. MM5 proved to be a suit- tive rainfall events combine with short hydrological re- able tool for hydrometeorological forecasting of flash sponse times, characteristics of steep streams and in- floods in Catalonia region. creasing urbanisation rates in coastal areas [2]. Following this introduction, in the next section we In the Arabian Peninsula region, the majority of litera- present a brief discussion of the climate conditions in ture dealing with hydrometeorological hazards is con- Jeddah and an overview of the synoptic environment that cerned with the hydrological investigation of the main took place during the event. In Section 3, a description of watershed systems (e.g. runoff hydrograph, peak dis- the physical model characteristics and characteristics of charges, sediment flow). This kind of studies is useful as the simulations are outlined. The simulation results of a basis for engineering studies related to flood protection, rainfall and its comparison with the available observa- storm drainage and water resource management, e.g. [1,3, tions are presented in Section 4. Section 5 focuses on the 4]. Previous work dealing with the numerical simulation mesoscale analysis relevant to the event.