Cold air outbreaks and their signature in the ozonometric data at the mountain station near Kislovodsk, Russia

International audienceTwo cases of cold air outbreak in November 2001 are analyzed on the basis of ozone concentration measurements and weather data at the mountain station (43°44' N, 42°43 E, 2070 m a.s.l.) near Kislovodsk, North Caucasus, Russia. Two cold fronts, with fast clearing up in the rear of the cloud zone, passed the station in the morning of 12 and 16 November. In both cases, the ozone concentration drops down to 7?8 ppb within the frontal cloud zones, under 100% relative humidity, RH, and then sharply increases to 43?45 ppb in dry (RH about 50%), cold air during several hours. After a warm front passage (12 November) or RH growth in the cold post-frontal airmass (16 November), the ozone concentration decreases again to its average values near 30 ppb. Neither diurnal cycle nor photochemical generation could produce in the ozonometric data this specific "drop-and-peak'' signature which is considered to be caused by cold outbreak with post-frontal flow of "dry air stream'' type. Synoptic situation and tropopause topography are analyzed using the objective analysis data and METEOSAT images in the water vapor radiation band. It is concluded that the ozone growth in the rear of the cold fronts is associated with sinking of substratospheric or stratospherically influenced air from the areas of tropopause folding. Motion of cold surges with their frontal zones, jet streams, and tropopause folds is analyzed, including development of wave disturbances at the streamers and formation of substratospheric air "tongues'' underflowing the high tropopause and representing "aged'' intrusions

Freezing precipitation in Russia and the Ukraine

International audienceConditions for freezing precipitation (FP), including freezing rain (FR) and freezing drizzle (FZ) for 8 airports in Russia and 4 in the Ukraine are studied on the basis of 10 to 20-year series of surface observations, radiosonde and objective analysis data. Statistical characteristics are presented of the FP episode durations and of occurrence frequency dependences on surface air temperature, wind direction and speed and cloud base height. From the radiosonde data, it is found that the "classical mechanism" of FP generation (for which, stratification of "warm nose" type in the cloud layer is necessary) is not frequent: most of FP cases are associated with "all cold" conditions in the lower 3-km layer, that is, with negative temperatures in and below the clouds

Precipitation rate spectra as dependent on dynamic forcing: application to probabilistic forecasting

International audienceOccurrence frequencies, OF, of 12-h precipitation amounts, P, at stations in the former European USSR are displayed as dependent on dynamic forcing of vertical motions. The dynamic forcing is described by a "frontal parameter", F (calculated in the points of objective analysis grid), which depends on the surface pressure field curvature and on the baroclinicity in the lower half of the troposphere. The precipitation rate spectra for 4 seasons, calculated from a large sample of data (7 years, about 650 000 values of P for one season), show a monotonous OF growth of all ranges of P>1 mm/12 h with F increase. The growth is especially significant for heavy precipitation. As a result, F is shown to be an informative predictor of P spectrum or of probability of any given range of P. As a next step, two-dimensional spectra of precipitation occurrence frequency, as a function of F and LNB, that is, OF (F, LNB), are calculated, LNB being the level of neutral buoyancy at the gridpoint, an estimate of grid-scale convective instability. On this basis, an approach to probabilistic forecasting is suggested