Severe storms requirements for precipitation information

Abstract

Moisture can play an important if not dominant role in supplying energy to tropical and extra-tropical weather systems. In the tropics where the air is almost saturated only the slightest amount of uplift is required to initiate the release of vast amounts of latent heat to fuel systems as diverse as convective cloud clusters and hurricanes. The role of latent heating on extra-tropical systems is much more subtle. While the primary energy source for synoptic-scale systems is often the release of gravitational potential energy through the sinking of cold air and the rising of warm, it seems that the latent heat that is eventually realized through slow uplift of large masses of air can significantly modify the evolution of the system. An analysis of the energetics of the storm of March 25 to 27, 1978 over the eastern USA to understand the implications of the heat released due to the vast cloudy area associated with warm frontal overrunning was performed.