A climatology of instability indices derived from Friuli Venezia Giulia soundings, using three different methods

Manzato, Agostino

doi:10.1016/s0169-8095(03)00058-9

Cited by 53 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…For the assessment of thermal stability, we used the surfacebased lifted index (SLI) and the convective available potential energy (CAPE). Both quantities have been identified in various studies to represent atmospheric stability well (Davis et al, 1997;Haklander and van Delden, 2003;Manzato, 2003;Kunz, 2007;Mohr and Kunz, 2013).…”

Section: Radio Soundingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exceptional sequence of severe thunderstorms and related flash floods in May and June 2016 in Germany – Part 1: Meteorological background

Piper

Kunz

Ehmele

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. During a 15-day episode from 26 May to 9 June 2016, Germany was affected by an exceptionally large number of severe thunderstorms. Heavy rainfall, related flash floods and creek flooding, hail, and tornadoes caused substantial losses running into billions of euros (EUR). This paper analyzes the key features of the severe thunderstorm episode using extreme value statistics, an aggregated precipitation severity index, and two different objective weathertype classification schemes. It is shown that the thunderstorm episode was caused by the interaction of high moisture content, low thermal stability, weak wind speed, and large-scale lifting by surface lows, persisting over almost 2 weeks due to atmospheric blocking.For the long-term assessment of the recent thunderstorm episode, we draw comparisons to a 55-year period regarding clusters of convective days with variable length (2-15 days) based on precipitation severity, convection-favoring weather patterns, and compound events with low stability and weak flow. It is found that clusters with more than 8 consecutive convective days are very rare. For example, a 10-day cluster with convective weather patterns prevailing during the recent thunderstorm episode has a probability of less than 1 %. IntroductionBetween the end of May and mid-June 2016, Germany and large parts of central and southern Europe were affected by an exceptionally large number of severe convective storms and related extremes such as heavy rainfall, hail, and tornadoes (Fig. 1). Rain totals exceeding 100 mm within a few hours at several locations in Germany triggered various flash floods and floods mainly in small catchments. In the town of Braunsbach in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, for example, a severe flash flood on 29 May with a height of up to 3.5 m caused serious damage to more than 80 buildings, of which five were completely lost (Daniell et al., 2016). Only 3 days later on 1 June, extreme rain in the district of Rottal-Inn in the south of Bavaria evoked a sudden and dramatic rise in the levels of several creeks such as the Simbach, where the height increased from 20 cm to more than 5 m within only 12 h. Subsequently, the village Simbach am Inn experienced the largest flooding in history. Some of the thunderstorms during the 2 weeks also produced hail with diameters between 0.5 and 5 cm. A total of 12 tornadoes in 8 days with intensities between F0 and F1 on the Fujita intensity scale, were recorded and confirmed by the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD; Dotzek et al., 2009).The severe thunderstorms caused substantial damage to buildings, infrastructures, transportation networks, and crops. A large number of roads and railroads were blocked or severely damaged, and some villages experienced power outPublished by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

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Section: Radio Soundingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exceptional sequence of severe thunderstorms and related flash floods in May and June 2016 in Germany – Part 1: Meteorological background

Piper

Kunz

Ehmele

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…LFC height is lower for Tv and higher for Tvc, but in Tvc, at high altitudes, freezing increases the buoyancy of the lifted parcel. See Manzato (2003) for a statistical evaluation of the difference due to these three methods, computed for most of the indices studied here. Table 2 lists the 52 sounding-derived indices used in this study, along with the yearday (JJJ) and the sea surface temperature (SST) measured by the OSMER-ARPA FVG station located in Trieste.…”

Section: ) Sounding-derived Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table 2 lists the 52 sounding-derived indices used in this study, along with the yearday (JJJ) and the sea surface temperature (SST) measured by the OSMER-ARPA FVG station located in Trieste. The list in Table 2 contains all the indices already described in previous work by the author (Manzato 2003(Manzato , 2005(Manzato , 2007a plus some others, newly developed for this hail study. The eight new indices computed by SOUND_ANALYS.PY are the following: BS850: The bulk shear between the pressure-weighted mean wind measured in the layer defined by 850 6 5 hPa and the pressure-weighted mean wind in the first 100 m above the surface.…”

Section: ) Sounding-derived Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Rasmussen and Blanchard (1998) one can see that large-hail-producing storms in the United States could be partially discriminated by the following indices: 0-6-km bulk shear, 0-4-km shear, CAPE in the 3 km above the level of free convection (LFC), energy-helicity index (EHI), product of mean shear and squared CAPE, and also LCL. Manzato (2003) correlated the number of hailpads hit by hail in 6 h over the FVG plain with many soundingderived indices, finding the best correlations for lifted index (LI; Galway 1956) and the similar index called DT500 (an LI with a different initial parcel), followed by updraft velocity (UpDr), hail diameter (HD, estimated from the CAPE integrated between the LFC and the 2158C parcel level), and EHI. With respect to the hailstone size-which is a different topic even if related to hailstorm occurrence- Palencia et al (2010) have found that the maximum linear correlation (R 5 20.17) between the maximum hailstone size measured by the FVG hailpad network and a selection of Udine-soundingderived indices is also obtained by the lifted index, computed using the virtual correction, while a slightly higher correlation (R 5 20.18) is found for the surface pressure drop between 0000 and 1200 UTC of the hailstorm day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hail in Northeast Italy: Climatology and Bivariate Analysis with the Sounding-Derived Indices

Manzato¹

2012

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

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In this work the hailpad data collected during the April-September period of the years 1992-2009 by a network of approximately 360 stations on the plain of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (northeast Italy) were analyzed. The frequency distribution of the hail cases is studied for the different years, for the yearday, and for the time of day, considering four 6-h-long periods of the day. Hail is found to be more frequent during the 1100-2300 UTC time interval and in the months of June and July even though during the 18 years analyzed there does not seem to be a defined trend in hail probability. The spatial distribution shows a maximum of probability along the foothills in particular in the northwest. In the middle of this area there is also the UdineCampoformido radiosounding station, which performed four soundings per day. Each case (6-h-long period) is then associated with the 52 indices derived from the sounding launched at the beginning of that period. These sounding-derived indices are not all statistically independent, as found by looking at their correlation matrix and aggregating the most-correlated indices in three groups. A diagnostic bivariate analysis between each index and the hit hailpads in 6 h was done as a preliminary attempt to evaluate the utility of these indices for forecasting hail. It is found that some measures of instability (like updraft, hail diameter, and lifted index) seem to have more skill than the other indices when classifying the hail-event occurrence. When estimating the number of hit hailpads, the best correlation is obtained by the indices belonging to the ''lifted index family.''

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“…Indeed, López et al (2007) obtained varying results when they attempted to apply models having high accuracy for Europe to other geographical areas. Some studies of hailstorm prediction have shown that instability indices by themselves are unable to produce successful predictions of the incidence of hailstorms (Manzato, 2003;Siedlecki, 2008). The predictions will depend strongly on the specific geographical area considered because the characteristics of this area will define the values and parameters associated with the particular meteorological conditions that occur (Kunz, 2007;Sánchez et al, 2009;Dimitrova et al, 2009) Alesandrov and Hoogenboom (2001) demonstrated great variability in climatology at the local level for Georgia (USA).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of hail damages and temperature series for peninsular Spain

Saá-Requejo¹,

Moreno

Álvarez³

et al. 2011

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract.Hail is a serious concern for agriculture on the Iberian Peninsula. Hailstorms affect crop yield and/or quality to a degree that depends on the crop species and the phenological time. In Europe, Spain is one of the countries that experience relatively high agricultural losses related to hailstorms. It is of high interest to study models that can support calculations of the probabilities of economic losses due to hail damage and of the tendency over time for such losses.Some studies developed in France and the Netherdlands show that the summer mean temperature was highly correlated with a yearly hail severity index developed from hailrelated parameters obtained for insurance purposes. Meanwhile, other studies in the USA point out that a highly significant correlation between both is not possible to find due to high climatic variability.The aim of this work is to test the correlation between average minimum temperatures and hail damage intensity over the Spanish Iberian Peninsula. With this purpose, correlation analyses on both variables were performed for the 47 Spanish provinces (as individuals and single set) and for all crops and four individual crops: grapes, wheat, barley and winter grains. Suitable crop insurance data are available from 1981 until 2007 and based on this period, temperature data were obtained.This study does not confirm the results previously obtained for France and the Netherlands that relate observed hail damage to the average minimum temperature. The reason for this difference and the nature of the cases observed are discussed.

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A climatology of instability indices derived from Friuli Venezia Giulia soundings, using three different methods

Cited by 53 publications

References 8 publications

Exceptional sequence of severe thunderstorms and related flash floods in May and June 2016 in Germany – Part 1: Meteorological background

Exceptional sequence of severe thunderstorms and related flash floods in May and June 2016 in Germany – Part 1: Meteorological background

Hail in Northeast Italy: Climatology and Bivariate Analysis with the Sounding-Derived Indices

Analysis of hail damages and temperature series for peninsular Spain

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