Extreme Rainfall In Texas: Patterns and Predictability

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Ptarmigan
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Extreme Rainfall In Texas: Patterns and Predictability
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/222/NGrainpp.pdf

Abstract: Extreme rainfall, with storm total precipitation exceeding 500 mm, occurs several
times per decade in Texas. Through a compositing analysis, the large-scale weather patterns
associated with extreme rainfall events involve a northward deflection of the tropical trade winds
into Texas, with deep southerly winds extending into the middle troposphere. One such event,
the July 2002 South-Central Texas flood, is examined in detail. This particular event was
associated with a stationary upper-level trough over central Texas and northern Mexico, which
established a steady influx of tropical moisture from the south. While the onset of the event was
triggered by destabilization caused by an upper-level vortex moving over the northeast Mexican
coast, a succession of upper-level processes allowed the event to become stationary over southcentral
Texas and produced heavy rain for several days. While the large-scale signatures of such
extreme rain events evolve slowly, the many interacting processes at smaller scales make
numerical forecasts highly sensitive to details of the simulations. [flooding, rainfall, Texas]
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