Identification of the Effective Jet Stream Patterns In the Heavy Precipitation of the Cold Season In the Southern Half of Iran

Farshad Pazhoh[1], PhD in Synoptic Climatology, Department of Natural Geography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, University Kharazmi, Tehran, Iran



Every year, important parts of a large part of our country are affected by the climatic hazards of heavy precipitation and lots of damages are done to the country. If the generating circulation patterns of heavy precipitation waves will identify, its occurrence can be predicted from at least one or two days before the beginning of the sequence of patterns ending in floods (Alijani, 2006, 156). Occurrence of heavy precipitation, so that its amount is more than the soil penetration capacity, causes runoff and floods. Now, if these heavy precipitations occur in urban areas, it is associated with more dangers, because the permeability in urban areas is less than in out-of-town areas, and a significant amount of such precipitation in urban areas has turned into runoff and floods. Cause damages to places, buildings and urban facilities (Taheri Behbahani and Bozorgzadeh, 1996, 2).

Two sets of data were used to conduct this research. One is surface data and the other is high atmospheric data. For this purpose, in the first category, the related precipitation data of the cold season of 8 synoptic stations in the southern half of Iran (Table 2) in the period from December 1, 1970 to March 31, 2014 were obtained from the Meteorological Organization. To identify the occurrence of heavy precipitation leading to major floods in the study area, considering that heavy precipitation has covered more than 50% of stations and the precipitation of each station is more than 95% during the study period.

Considering the above two conditions, 61 heavy and pervasive precipitations were selected from the total precipitations above the percentile of 95% of the stations. In the second category, high atmospheric data obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States. The synoptic scale in order to tracking the troposphere synoptic patterns includes a longitude of 20 west degrees to 100 east degrees and a latitude of 0 to 80 north degrees. In the selected synoptic scale, 1790 cells are located; the distance between each cell is 2.5 by 2.5 arc degrees.

In order to identify the jet stream patterns, first the factor analysis method with Varimax rotation was applied on the geo potential height data of 500 hPa during the selected 61 days of heavy and pervasive precipitations and found that the first 12 factors explain more than 90% data’s diffraction. The first factor accounts for about 32% of geo potential height data diffraction (Table 4). In the next step, in order to reduce the data volume and identify the synoptic patterns, the cluster analysis method was performed on the scores of the first 12 factors by the integration method and 4 synoptic patterns affecting the arrangement of the winds were extracted. Then, for each of the identified patterns, a representative day that had the highest correlation with the desired pattern determined (Table 3) and appropriate maps for the representative days of the patterns were drawn and analysed.

The results showed that the merged jet stream patterns (subtropical-sub polar), tropical jet stream (ridge-trough), orbital subtropical jet stream and meridian subtropical jet stream were effective in the occurrence of heavy precipitation, which meridian subtropical jet patterns and merged have played the most important role. In the first pattern, the merged jet stream plays role in 16 days and 26.3% of the precipitation days. The merged jet streams core is generally located on the Red Sea, and the subtropical jet stream penetrates from North Africa, and after crossing the Red Sea and northern Saudi Arabia, the left half of the jet stream’s exit covers the whole of the southern and central half of the country. The sub polar jet stream in a northwest-southeast direction from central and the west of the Europe from the centre and west of Europe penetrate to the lower latitudes and from central and eastern part of the Mediterranean and at the entrance part of the left side merge with subtropical jet stream. In the merger pattern, the sub polar jet stream corresponding to the western half of the trough of the middle-level of troposphere plays the role of cold air Advection and transferring the western winds to the lower latitudes, and the subtropical jet stream, corresponds to the eastern half of the trough, play the role of the discharge and divergence of warm and southern humid air on the southern half of the country’s atmosphere. In the second pattern, the subtropical jet stream (ridge-trough structure) with 13 days and 21.3%, generally in Northeast Africa, the subtropical jet stream with a huge ridge structure in direction of northwest to south east extends to the centre of the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia and also the trough structure of jet stream stretches from north of Iraq to the centre of the Red Sea. This trough structure’s sinkhole of jet stream this subtropical sinkhole has caused the left half of the jet stream's outlet with meridian curvature cover the whole of the southern half and most of the country after crossing Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. But in the third pattern of the orbital subtropical jet stream, which plays a role in 14 days and 23.4% of heavy and pervasive precipitation days, the jet stream core has the most stretching and range, mainly from the eastern Mediterranean and north of Saudi Arabia to the western half of Iran, and the jet stream structure is completely formed west to east with least meridian structure. The intensity and pervasiveness of precipitations in this pattern such as the second one is weaker than the other patter. However, in the fourth pattern, the meridian sub-tropical jet stream is present as the most frequent pattern with 18 days and 29% of the selected precipitations days. In this pattern the jet stream has a southwest to northeast direction and the jet stream's core, like the third pattern, generally extends from north of Saudi Arabia to centre of Iran and sometimes to northeast of Iran. The locating of this jet stream with a suitable curvature on the important water resources of the south of the country and corresponding to the north eastern half of the trough from north eastern of Africa to north eastern of Iran after the merged pattern, has caused the most pervasive and intensive precipitations days in the south of the country.



Keywords: Heavy and Pervasive precipitation, Cluster Analysis, Subtropical Jet stream, Low Pressure, Trough, Southern half of Iran


[1] Corresponding Author: Email: climate.synoptic@gmail.com