Relationships between tropical cyclone attributes and precipitation totals: considerations of scale

In this study, a heavy rain climatology is constructed that relates precipitation totals estimated over a range of spatial scales (i.e. circular regions from 2500 to 500 000 km2) to tropical cyclone attributes. To carry this out, an automated algorithm is developed that identifies 2 day precipitation totals across the Cooperative Observer Network and estimates the greatest precipitation amounts over each spatial scale for all events from 1950 through to 1996. These maximum mean precipitation amounts are related to the tropical cyclone attributes of strength, size, and speed of movement. The resulting relationships are found to vary significantly according to the scale of precipitation. Precipitation amounts over the largest scales are most highly associated with the size of tropical cyclones, and precipitation amounts over the smallest scales are most highly connected with the speed of movement of the tropical cyclones. Copyright © 2002 Royal Meteorological Society.