Atmospheric conditions favouring extreme precipitation and flash floods in temperate regions of Europe

Meyer, Judith; Neuper, Malte; Mathias, Luca; Zehe, Erwin; Pfister, Laurent

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6163-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 23

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6163-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6163-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 23

Research article

|

09 Dec 2022

Research article |

| 09 Dec 2022

Atmospheric conditions favouring extreme precipitation and flash floods in temperate regions of Europe

Judith Meyer, Malte Neuper, Luca Mathias, Erwin Zehe, and Laurent Pfister

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6163-2022-supplement

Data sets

RADKLIM Version 2017.002: Reprocessed quasi gauge-adjusted radar data Winterrath et al., 2018 https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD/RADKLIM\_YW\_V2017

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1979 to present Hersbach et al., 2018 https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1979 to present Hersbach et al., 2018 https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

The ERA5 global reanalysis Hersbach et al., 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803

ERA5-Land hourly data from 1981 to present Mu\~{n}oz Sabater, 2019 https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e2161bac

Short summary

We identified and analysed the major atmospheric components of rain-intense thunderstorms that can eventually lead to flash floods: high atmospheric moisture, sufficient latent instability, and weak thunderstorm cell motion. Between 1981 and 2020, atmospheric conditions became likelier to support strong thunderstorms. However, the occurrence of extreme rainfall events as well as their rainfall intensity remained mostly unchanged.