Modulations of Synoptic Weather Patterns on Warm-Sector Heavy Rainfall in South China: Insights From High-Density Observations With Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

Based on hourly high-density precipitation data in Guangdong Province, China, 134 warm-sector heavy rainfall (WSHR) events were selected from 2016 to 2018. The synoptic weather patterns of these WSHR events were objectively classified using T-mode principal component analysis. Six WSHR weather patterns were identified, as follows: Type 1-southwest (T1-SW), Type 2-southeast (T2-SE), Type 3-coastal jets I (T3-CJI), Type 4-coastal jets II (T4-CJ II), Type 5-western low vortex (T5-WL), and Type 6-high-pressure (T6-HP). Three high-occurrence WSHR centers were finally extracted: the areas of Yangjiang and Shanwei, and the urban agglomeration of Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Compared with the other five patterns, T6-HP is a newly identified WSHR weather pattern, which is related to a local/small-scale weather system in the context of anomalous northward movement of the western Pacific subtropical high. Notably, the precipitation area of the T6-HP type of WSHR event is smaller, which can only be captured by high-density observations. In addition, the occurrence locations of six large-scale extreme precipitation events were closely associated with the urban agglomerations in GBA, implying that urbanization plays an important role in extreme magnitudes of large-scale WSHR events and their occurrence centers.