Climatic Aspects of the 1993 Upper Mississippi River Basin Flood

Kunkel, Kenneth E.; Changnon, Stanley A.; Angel, James R.

doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1994)075<0811:caotum>2.0.co;2

Cited by 131 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The 2008 (Kunkel et al, 1994); in 2008 the area extended eastwards into Indiana with flooding reported along the Wabash River. This paper demonstrates that these differences in the timing and duration of flood occurrence in both years, as well as the geographic area impacted by the floods, can be accounted for by the antecedent surface and atmospheric conditions, and the evolution of the state the subsequent large-scale circulation patterns associated with the flooding.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric aspects of the 2008 Midwest floods: a repeat of 1993?

Coleman

Budikova

2009

Intl Journal of Climatology

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This paper identifies and documents the major large-scale atmospheric circulation characteristics that preceded and facilitated the devastating floods across the Midwestern United States along the upper Mississippi, Missouri, and Wabash River basins in the late spring/early summer of 2008. These circulation features were also placed in the context of the 1993 floods that occurred within a similar temporal and spatial domain. This process included investigating the relationship between various atmospheric conditions and the timing of flood-producing rainfall events at monthly and sub-monthly timescales. Unlike in 1993, the 2008 flood event took place 1 month earlier in the year (May), lasted over a much shorter time period, and extended eastwards into Indiana. The comparison confirmed much previous work regarding the factors associated with Midwest flooding during the early warm-season and revealed the possible influence of the state of the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) on warm-season flooding across the Midwest. Both the 2008 and 1993 events were preceded by an NAO positive phase; the pattern switched phase about 2 months before the onset of the flooding and remained negative for the duration of the floods. While the major atmospheric conditions known to be associated with major flooding across the Midwest were present in 2008 (e.g. a strong Great Plains low-level jet), the level of their development, persistence, and geographic orientation/position was very distinct from those observed in 1993. These conditions were also embedded in different state of the remote hemispheric circulation over the Pacific North American region. Together, these variations contributed to the 2008 Midwest floods that occurred earlier in the warm season, were shorter-lived, and had an impact on a slightly different geographic area.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric aspects of the 2008 Midwest floods: a repeat of 1993?

Coleman

Budikova

2009

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…Although details of these events may vary, such as the Midwest floods of 1993 (e.g., Kunkel et al 1994) and 2008(e.g., Coleman and Budikova 2010, there is no question that these events cause immense social and economic stress to those that are affected. Furthermore, very heavy precipitation events are often highly localized in time and space and can occur independently from changes in the seasonal mean, making these events difficult to predict (Gershunov 1998;Kunkel et al 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional, Very Heavy Daily Precipitation in NARCCAP Simulations

Kawazoe

Gutowski

2013

Journal of Hydrometeorology

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The authors analyze the ability of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program's ensemble of climate models to simulate very heavy daily precipitation and its supporting processes, comparing simulations that used observation-based boundary conditions with observations. The analysis includes regional climate models and a time-slice global climate model that all used approximately half-degree resolution. Analysis focuses on an upper Mississippi River region for winter (December-February), when it is assumed that resolved synoptic circulation governs precipitation. All models generally reproduce the precipitation-versus-intensity spectrum seen in observations well, with a small tendency toward producing overly strong precipitation at high-intensity thresholds, such as the 95th, 99th, and 99.5th percentiles. Further analysis focuses on precipitation events exceeding the 99.5th percentile that occur simultaneously at several points in the region, yielding so-called "widespread events. " Examination of additional fields shows that the models produce very heavy precipitation events for the same physical conditions seen in the observations. KeywordsExtreme events, Precipitation, Climate models, Regional models ABSTRACTThe authors analyze the ability of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program's ensemble of climate models to simulate very heavy daily precipitation and its supporting processes, comparing simulations that used observation-based boundary conditions with observations. The analysis includes regional climate models and a time-slice global climate model that all used approximately half-degree resolution. Analysis focuses on an upper Mississippi River region for winter (December-February), when it is assumed that resolved synoptic circulation governs precipitation. All models generally reproduce the precipitation-versus-intensity spectrum seen in observations well, with a small tendency toward producing overly strong precipitation at high-intensity thresholds, such as the 95th, 99th, and 99.5th percentiles. Further analysis focuses on precipitation events exceeding the 99.5th percentile that occur simultaneously at several points in the region, yielding so-called ''widespread events.'' Examination of additional fields shows that the models produce very heavy precipitation events for the same physical conditions seen in the observations.

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“…Extended periods of substantial precipitation represented by monthly extremes can produce widespread episodes of flooding (e.g., Kunkel et al 1994). We focus on simulations of contemporary climate produced by a set of regional climate models (RCMs) that simulated a common period and domain for the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) (Mearns et al @@ Deceased. 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional Extreme Monthly Precipitation Simulated by NARCCAP RCMs

Gutowski

Arritt

Kawazoe

et al. 2010

Journal of Hydrometeorology

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This paper analyzes the ability of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) ensemble of regional climate models to simulate extreme monthly precipitation and its supporting circulation for regions of North America, comparing 18 years of simulations driven by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)-Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis with observations. The analysis focuses on the wettest 10% of months during the cold half of the year (October-March), when it is assumed that resolved synoptic circulation governs precipitation. For a coastal California region where the precipitation is largely topographic, the models individually and collectively replicate well the monthly frequency of extremes, the amount of extreme precipitation, and the 500-hPa circulation anomaly associated with the extremes. The models also replicate very well the statistics of the interannual variability of occurrences of extremes. For an interior region containing the upper Mississippi River basin, where precipitation is more dependent on internally generated storms, the models agree with observations in both monthly frequency and magnitude, although not as closely as for coastal California. In addition, simulated circulation anomalies for extreme months are similar to those in observations. Each region has important seasonally varying precipitation processes that govern the occurrence of extremes in the observations, and the models appear to replicate well those variations. RightsCopyright 2010 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a website or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license from the AMS. All AMS journals and monograph publications are registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (http://www.copyright.com). Questions about permission to use materials for which AMS holds the copyright can also be directed to the AMS Permissions Officer at permissions@ametsoc.org. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy statement, available on the AMS website (http://www.ametsoc.org/CopyrightInformation). ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the ability of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) ensemble of regional climate models to simulate extreme monthly precipitation and its supporting circulation for regions of North America, comparing 18 years of simulations driven by the National Centers for Environmental ...

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Climatic Aspects of the 1993 Upper Mississippi River Basin Flood

Cited by 131 publications

References 8 publications

Atmospheric aspects of the 2008 Midwest floods: a repeat of 1993?

Atmospheric aspects of the 2008 Midwest floods: a repeat of 1993?

Regional, Very Heavy Daily Precipitation in NARCCAP Simulations

Regional Extreme Monthly Precipitation Simulated by NARCCAP RCMs

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