HR: 1400h
AN: A23B-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Relationships between eastern Pacific tropical cyclones and convective rainfall in Baja California, Mexico
AU: * Farfan, L M
EM: farfan@cicese.mx
AF: CICESE (Unidad La Paz), Miraflores #334, La Paz, BCS 23050, Mexico
AU: Cosio, M A
EM: mcosio@cicese.mx
AF: CICESE (Unidad La Paz), Miraflores #334, La Paz, BCS 23050, Mexico
AB: The influence of tropical cyclones in rainfall patterns over the Baja California peninsula is examined. The impact of these systems, over the southern portion of the peninsula, is analyzed and the study period is limited to the summer of 2004. This is associated with the field phase of the North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME), which is intended to improve predictions of warm season precipitation over North America. We used the best-track dataset from the U.S. National Hurricane Center to classify, based on distance from the circulation center, systems that approached the peninsula at ranges of 400-, 800- and 1200-km. During the season of 2004, activity was below the long-term annual mean with nine systems developing between July and September. Four cases were selected for subsequent analysis: Tropical Storm Blas, Hurricane Frank, Hurricane Howard, and Hurricane Javier. Data from the upper-air station at La Paz were used to evaluate humidity changes during the storm approach and rain gauge reports provided information to determine the spatial distribution of the convective precipitation. Our analysis shows that, when compared with a base period of 15 years, 2004 resulted in below normal precipitation over the southern peninsula. In contrast, above normal conditions occurred in the central peninsula.
DE: 3300 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
DE: 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions (1218, 1631, 1843)
DE: 3374 Tropical meteorology
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly