Abstract
Severe convective storms occasionally result in loss of life and property in Turkey, a country not known for its severe convective weather. However, relatively little is known about the characteristics of Turkish severe weather environments. This paper documents these characteristics using European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis data on tornado and severe hail days in Turkey from 1979 to 2013. Severe storm environments are characterized by larger convective available potential energy (CAPE) in Turkey compared to the rest of Europe, but the CAPE values are less than those in typical U.S. severe storm environments. Severe hail is associated with large CAPE and vertical wind shear. Nonmesocyclonic tornadoes are associated with less CAPE compared with the other forms of severe weather. Deep-layer vertical wind shear is slightly weaker in Turkish supercell environments than in U.S. supercell environments, and Turkish tornadic supercell environments are characterized by much weaker low-level shear than in the United States and Europe, at least in the ECMWF reanalysis data. Composite parameters such as the supercell composite parameter (SCP) and energy-helicity index (EHI) can discriminate between very large hail and large hail environments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 4711-4725 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Monthly Weather Review |
| Volume | 145 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 American Meteorological Society.
Funding
AK was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TüB_ITAK), with Program 2214. He thanks the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at The Pennsylvania State University for hosting him between August 2013 and August 2014. George Bryan is acknowledged for his Fortran code for CAPE calculations, which is wrapped into an NCAR Command Language (NCL) script. The authors are also grateful for Istanbul Technical University's BAP program for supporting this study. Finally, we thank Matthew Bunkers, two anonymous reviewers, and Editor Pamela Heinselman for their comments and suggestions for improving the paper. Acknowledgments. AK was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), with Program 2214. He thanks the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at The Pennsylvania State University for hosting him between August 2013 and August 2014. George Bryan is acknowledged for his Fortran code for CAPE calculations, which is wrapped into an NCAR Command Language (NCL) script. The authors are also grateful for Istanbul Technical University’s BAP program for supporting this study. Finally, we thank Matthew Bunkers, two anonymous reviewers, and Editor Pamela Heinselman for their comments and suggestions for improving the paper.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| TÜBİTAK | |
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | |
| Pennsylvania State University | |
| National Council for Scientific Research |
Keywords
- Convective storms
- Hail
- Storm environments
- Synoptic climatology
- Tornadoes
