Synoptic thermodynamic and dynamic patterns associated with Quitandinha River flooding events in Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Bull. of Atmos. Sci.& Technol.

et al. 2021

Self Cite

Forecasting summer storms requires addressing critical atmospheric conditions to determine the potential of their development and further evolution. However, due to the high degree of variability in the development of the storms, their early detection still represents a challenge to the operational forecasters and scientific community. In this context, this study endeavored to evaluate the rainfall and atmospheric parameters simulated by the Weather, Research, and Forecasting (WRF) numerical model using three grid domains (27 km, 09 km, and 03 km). This study proposed an evaluation of precipitation and atmospheric parameters for ten summer storm events over Macaé city during the austral summer of 2020 and 2021, as initially reported by local observers. The synoptic chart data showed that the local effects, the frontal systems passages, and the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) were related to the storms observed. From the qualitative evaluation of the precipitation simulated by WRF, we found higher values over the mountainous region of Macaé city and lower values downstream. The quantitative assessment showed that the WRF model could reproduce the hourly rainfall development, although with a tendency of underestimation compared to the observations. The mean temporal evolution of atmospheric variables over Macaé city corroborated the importance of the joint analyses of thermodynamic and dynamic parameters and the increase of horizontal grid resolution to represent better the environment favorable to storm development.

Section: Summer Storm Events and Meteorological Systems Associatedmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Mean Temporal Evaluations Of the Atmospheric Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluation of rainfall and atmospheric parameters during afternoon summer storms over Macaé city (Brazil) using WRF numerical model

Bull. of Atmos. Sci.& Technol.

et al. 2021

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Intl Journal of Climatology

“…The wind is an important meteorological variable to socioeconomic activities such as renewable energy (Assireu et al ., 2011; Pellegrini et al ., 2016; Pellegrini et al ., 2019; Silva et al ., 2019) and agriculture (Vacek et al ., 2018). The spatial and temporal characteristics of the wind regime are central to several areas of meteorology, including weather forecasting (Torres and Ferreira, 2011) and climatology (Reboita et al ., 2010; Brito et al ., 2017; Gilliland and Keim, 2018a; Sobral et al ., 2018a; Gilliland et al ., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The wind regime over the Brazilian Southeast: Spatial and temporal characterization using multivariate analysis

Filho

Souza

Júnior

et al. 2021

The characterization of spatial and temporal patterns of wind is essential to several sectors, including energy, urban climate, and applied meteorology. However, few studies describe the regional characteristics of the wind regime over the Brazilian Southeast (SEB), the most developed and populated part of the country. The objectives of the current work were (a) to assess the spatial patterns of the wind regime using cluster analysis (CA) and (b) to apply principal components analysis (PCA) to investigate which meteorological systems influence the spatial and temporal patterns of the wind regime. The dataset consisted of wind speed and direction from 70 automatic weather stations with records from 2008 to 2019. According to the CA method, four groups of homogeneous wind speed (G1–G4) were identified; G4 presented the highest magnitudes of wind speed (wind speed >5 m·s−1, with maxima of 7.2 m·s−1). Seasonal well‐defined minima (March–June) and maxima (July–October) were observed only for G2 and G3. The systems South Atlantic Subtropical Anticyclone (SASA), Frontal Systems (FS), and the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) influenced these groups. In addition, the mesoscale meteorological systems likely influence other groups such as breezes from land/sea (G1, G3, and G4), lakes (G2 and G3), and valley/mountain (G2 and G3). The topography had a strong influence on G3, mainly due to the mountain ranges of Mantiqueira and Serra do Mar and Paraíba River valley. Dominant wind directions were E, N/NE, and NW, associated with SASA, in addition to S and SE/SW, influenced by FS and SACZ. The wind speed range of 1.4–3.9 m·s−1 was dominant in all groups, except for G4 (range of 2.4–5.5 m·s−1). According to PCA analysis, two PCs are enough to explain the wind pattern in the SEB with 69.9% of the total variance explained. The surface roughness accounted for 29% of the total variance explained in PC1. The latitude (37.6%) and distance to the coast (30.8%) are the most important variables for PC2. Region's physiography and meteorological systems strongly influenced the wind regime over the Brazilian Southeast. The assessment of wind regime variability presented in this work is expected to support public policies on renewable energy applications, air pollution, and climate change mitigation.

“…Among the rivers monitored by INEA, we selected to investigate the Quitandinha River because it has a good amount of data available and presents a high frequency of flooding events (Silva et al 2018(Silva et al , 2020b. In this context, we searched to drive the morphometric analysis in order to evaluate and obtain a better understanding of hydrological characteristics of the Quitandinha River watershed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Real-time river level estimation based on variations of radar reflectivity—a case study of the Quitandinha River watershed, Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Filho

Bull. of Atmos. Sci.& Technol.

et al. 2021

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The real-time warning for flash floods represents one of the major challenges for monitoring centers and civil defenses due to the short time frame in which such phenomena occur. That situation often takes place particularly in mountainous regions where high slope rate favors an increase in the velocity of the water flow and it might generate conditions to impact the water level due to potential for provoking erosion, landslides, and debris flow. An initial one new and unique prototype of hydrometeorological relationship for real-time, site-tunable, water level for flash flood prediction is presented. Time variations of the reflectivity measured by horizontal polarization radar are evaluated and correlated to generate the local estimate of the elevation of the Quitandinha River water level for the next hour. The proposal of this relationship is not intended to act as a simplified hydraulic model but to characterize if a critical elevation of the water level could be obtained from the radar reflectivity data and consequently whether the flash flooding event should be expected. We verified that the proposed relationship that tended to underestimate the water level peaks, however, qualitatively was initially able to indicate if a flood event could occur or not in the next hour. The expectation related to this initial relationship is to improve the obtained results in order to be used as a tool for decisionmaking in relation to the issuance of warnings delivered by environmental monitoring centers.