Synoptic environment associated with heavy rainfall events on the coastland of Northeast Brazil

Northeast Brazil (NEB) has an extensive coastal area, often hit by natural disasters that bring many social and economic losses. The objective of this work was to study the synoptic environment associated with a heavy rainfall event (HRE) on the coastland of NEB. We used daily rainfall data for coas...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Oliveira, Priscilla Teles de, Lima, Kellen Carla, Silva, Cláudio Moisés Santos e
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN)
Repositorio:Repositório Institucional da UFRN
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.ufrn.br:123456789/28870
Acceso en línea:https://repositorio.ufrn.br/jspui/handle/123456789/28870
https://doi.org/10.5194/adgeo-35-73-2013
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Synoptic environment
Heavy rainfall
Northeast Brazil
Descripción
Sumario:Northeast Brazil (NEB) has an extensive coastal area, often hit by natural disasters that bring many social and economic losses. The objective of this work was to study the synoptic environment associated with a heavy rainfall event (HRE) on the coastland of NEB. We used daily rainfall data for coastal area of NEB between the states of Rio Grande do Norte and Bahia, divided into two subregions: north and south coastland. This data was obtained from the hydrometeorological network managed by the Agência Nacional de Águas and the daily data reanalysis from the ERAInterim. For the selection of HRE the technique of quantiles was used, thus defined HRE where at least one rain gauge recorded rainfall above 95th percentile. The interannual distribution of events showed occurrence maximum in La Niña years and minimal in El Niño years. The results suggest that the HRE were formed mainly due to the action of upper-level cyclonic vortex, in hight levels, and due to the action to South Atlantic convergence zone, in low levels.