A characterisation of Alpine mesocyclone occurrence

Feldmann, Monika; Germann, Urs; Gabella, Marco; Berne, Alexis

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-1225-2021

Articles | Volume 2, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-1225-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-1225-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 2, issue 4

Research article

|

16 Dec 2021

Research article |

| 16 Dec 2021

A characterisation of Alpine mesocyclone occurrence

Monika Feldmann, Urs Germann, Marco Gabella, and Alexis Berne

Data sets

Radar-based mesocyclone detections in Switzerland from 2016-2020 M. Feldmann, U. Germann, M. Gabella, and A. Berne https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5122519

Model code and software

Thunderstorm Detection and Tracking - T-DaTing M. Feldmann and pysteps developers https://pysteps.readthedocs.io/en/latest/auto_examples/thunderstorm_detection_and_tracking.html#sphx-glr-auto-examples-thunderstorm-detection-and-tracking-py

Short summary

Mesocyclones are the rotating updraught of supercell thunderstorms that present a particularly hazardous subset of thunderstorms. A first-time characterisation of the spatiotemporal occurrence of mesocyclones in the Alpine region is presented, using 5 years of Swiss operational radar data. We investigate parallels to hailstorms, particularly the influence of large-scale flow, daily cycles and terrain. Improving understanding of mesocyclones is valuable for risk assessment and warning purposes.