At temperate latitudes the synoptic patterns of bird migration are strongly structured by the presence of cyclones and anticyclones, both in the horizontal and altitudinal dimensions. In certain synoptic conditions, birds may efficiently cross regions with opposing surface wind by choosing a higher flight altitude with more favourable wind. We observed migratory passerines at mid-latitudes that...

[1] A high-resolution mesoscale model was used to investigate the impact of deforestation in Amazonia. Coherent mesoscale circulations were triggered by the surface heterogeneity; synoptic flow did not eliminate the circulations but advected them away from the location where they were generated. This was substantiated by satellite-derived cloud images. These circulations affected the transport ...

This study examines ozone (O3) predictions from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model version 4.5 and discusses potential factors influencing the model results. Daily maximum 8-h average O3 levels are largely underpredicted when observed O3 levels are above 85 ppb and overpredicted when they are below 35 ppb. Using a clustering approach, model performance was examined separately for...

This article investigates the synoptic characteristics of individual North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) events by examining the daily evolution of the potential temperature field on the nominal tropopause (the 2-PVU surface). This quantity is obtained from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR) reanalysis dataset for the winter seaso...

The authors employ data from the NOAA Wind Profiler Network to present a scale-discriminating vorticity budget for a mesoscale convective vortex (MCV) that was generated by a mesoscale convective system (MCS) in Oklahoma and Kansas on 1 August 1996. A spatial bandpass filter was used to divide observed wind into mesoscale and synoptic components. Then the authors sought sources and sinks of vor...

A classification scheme is created to map the synoptic-scale (large scale) atmospheric state to distributions of local-scale cloud properties. This mapping is accomplished by a neural network that classifies 17 months of synoptic-scale initial conditions from the rapid update cycle forecast model into 25 different states. The corresponding data from a vertically pointing millimeter-wavelength c...

It is well known that some techniques have already been developed to automatically subdivide texts into multiparagraph subtopic passages, such as TextTiling methodology proposed by Hearst. However, an additional algorithm is needed to perform a similar task for parallel or variant texts, because ambiguous and complicated traces of cross citation among them might often generate some sinuous patt...

This study examines the characteristics of a large number of extreme rain events over the eastern two-thirds of the United States. Over a 5-yr period, 184 events are identified where the 24-h precipitation total at one or more stations exceeds the 50-yr recurrence amount for that location. Over the entire region of study, these events are most common in July. In the northern United States, extr...

We investigated the short-term effects of synoptic and mesoscale atmospheric circulation types on mortality in Athens, Greece. The synoptic patterns in the lower troposphere were classified in 8 a priori defined categories. The mesoscale weather types were classified into 11 categories, using meteorologic parameters from the Athens area surface monitoring network; the daily number of deaths was...

Updates to the Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) for the Atlantic basin are described. SHIPS combines climatological, persistence, and synoptic predictors to forecast intensity changes using a multiple regression technique. The original version of the model was developed for the Atlantic basin and was run in near–real time at the Hurricane Research Division beginning in ...