Convective rainfall in a dry climate: relations with synoptic systems and flash-flood generation in the Dead Sea region

Belachsen, Idit; Marra, Francesco; Peleg, Nadav; Morin, Efrat

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5165-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5165-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Environmental changes and hazards in the Dead Sea region (NHESS/ACP/HESS/SE...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5165-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 10

Research article

|

12 Oct 2017

Research article |

| 12 Oct 2017

Convective rainfall in a dry climate: relations with synoptic systems and flash-flood generation in the Dead Sea region

Idit Belachsen, Francesco Marra, Nadav Peleg, and Efrat Morin

Data sets

Use of radar QPE for the derivation of Intensity–Duration–Frequency curves in a range of climatic regimes F. Marra and E. Morin https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.08.064

The ERA-Interim reanalysis: Configuration and performance of the data assimilation system D. P. Dee, S. M. Uppala, A. J. Simmons, P. Berrisford, P. Poli, S. Kobayashi, U. Andrae, M. A. Balmaseda, G. Balsamo, and P. Bauer https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.828

Short summary

Spatiotemporal rainfall patterns in arid environments are not well-known. We derived properties of convective rain cells over the arid Dead Sea region from a long-term radar archive. We found differences in cell properties between synoptic systems and between flash-flood and non-flash-flood events. Large flash floods are associated with slow rain cells, directed downstream with the main catchment axis. Results from this work can be used for hydrological models and stochastic storm simulations.