Impacts of Gulf of Mexico SST Anomalies on Southern Plains Freezing Precipitation: ARW Sensitivity Study of the 28–30 January 2010 Winter Storm

Details

• Journal Title:
  Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology
• Personal Author:
  Mullens, Esther D. ; Leslie, Lance M. ; Lamb, Peter J.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  CIMMS (Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies) ; OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
• Description:
  Ice storms are an infrequent but significant hazard in the U.S southern Great Plains. Common synoptic profiles for freezing precipitation reveal advection of low-level warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), above a shallow Arctic air mass ahead of a midlevel trough. Because the GOM is the proximal basin and major moisture source, this study investigates impacts of varying GOM sea surface temperature (SST) on the thermodynamic evolution of a winter storm that occurred during 28–30 January 2010, with particular emphasis on the modulation of freezing precipitation. A high-resolution, nested ARW sensitivity study with a 3.3-km inner domain is performed, using six representations of GOM SST, including control, climatological mean, uniform ±2°C from control, and physically constrained upper- and lower-bound basin-average anomalies from a 30-yr dataset. The simulations reveal discernable impacts of SST on the warm-layer inversion, precipitation intensity, and low-level dynamics. Whereas total precipitation for the storm increased monotonically with SST, the freezing-precipitation response was more varied and nonlinear, with the greatest accumulation decreases occurring for the coolest SST perturbation, particularly at moderate precipitation rates. Enhanced precipitation and warm-layer intensity promoted by warmer SST were offset for the highest perturbations by deepening of the weak 850-hPa low circulation and faster eastward progression associated with enhanced baroclinicity and diabatic generation of potential vorticity. Air-parcel trajectories terminating within the freezing-precipitation region were examined to identify airmass sources and modification. These results suggest that GOM SST can affect the severity of concurrent ice-storm events in the southern Great Plains, with warmer basin SST potentially exacerbating the risk of damaging ice accumulations.
• Source:
  Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 55(1), 119-143
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1175/jamc-d-14-0289.1
• ISSN:
  1558-8424 ; 1558-8432
• Format:
  pdf
• Publisher:
  American Meteorological Society
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA08OAR4320904
• Rights Information:
  Other
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c685112b5874eabb02496b7e8ca227155c40c617c2c78e35ab843b3afcf1c5a09434595bb78779246922d651c02eebfad07ab3eb5c5e1c13a6cbfe23e6ac83a9
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/67647/noaa_67647_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.50 MB ]