The possible impact of the winter monsoon intensity and sea surface temperature (SST) gradient on the activity of explosively developing extratropical cyclones around Japan is investigated using the Weather Research Forecasting model. Two independent long-term integrations over 18 winters from 1993/94 to 2010/2011 are conducted using prescribed observed SST data (OS run) and spatially smoothed data (SS run). The OS run is successful in reproducing the spatial distributions of the explosive cyclone activity in the vicinity of Japan under both strong and weak winter monsoon conditions. Under strong monsoon conditions, the Kuroshio, the Kuroshio Extension, and the Japan Sea subpolar fronts give rise to enhanced near-surface baroclinicity through the increase in heat and moisture fluxes from the ocean surface, resulting in frequent occurrence of the explosive cyclone activity along those fronts.

Using data from the Japanese long-term Re-Analysis project (JRA-25) and the Japan Meteorological Agency Climate Data Assimilation System (JCDAS), we examined how the East Asian winter monsoon variability regulates the surface cyclogenesis in the vicinity of the East China Sea and the Kuroshio Current in late winter. On a monthly basis, the surface cyclone occurrence has a tendency to concentrate over the East China Sea at the strong phase of the East Asian winter monsoon activity, while it disperses zonally along the Kuroshio Current to the south of Japan in the weak monsoon phase. The scatteredness of the surface cyclogenesis are mainly attributed to the change in the lowertropospheric baroclinicity between the strong and weak monsoon phases. It is also suggested that, when the monsoon is strong, the enhanced baroclinic zone along the Kuroshio Current south of Japan provides a favorable condition for the rapid development of the surface cyclones that originate over the East China Sea and migrate northeastward.