A global climatology of sting-jet extratropical cyclones

Gray, Suzanne L.; Volonté, Ambrogio; Martínez-Alvarado, Oscar; Harvey, Ben J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-1523-2024

Articles | Volume 5, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-1523-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-1523-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 5, issue 4

Research article

|

17 Dec 2024

Research article |

| 17 Dec 2024

A global climatology of sting-jet extratropical cyclones

Suzanne L. Gray, Ambrogio Volonté, Oscar Martínez-Alvarado, and Ben J. Harvey

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-5-1523-2024-supplement

Data sets

A global climatology of sting-jet cyclones: TRACK files and Sting-Jet Precursor Cut-Outs S. L. Gray et al. https://doi.org/10.5285/4aac4f8ba15f43e59eb81756b464c9fb

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

RSS Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform (CCMP) 6-hourly ocean vector wind analysis on 0.25 deg grid, Version 3.0 C. Mears et al. https://doi.org/10.56236/RSS-uv6h30

Model code and software

Code to calculate DSCAPE from vertical profiles Oscar Martínez-Alvarado https://github.com/omartineza/csisounding

The TRACK cyclone identification and tracking algorithm Kevin Hodges https://gitlab.act.reading.ac.uk/track/

Computation of Downdraught Slantwise Convective Available Potential Energy (DSCAPE) from vertical soundings csisounding https://github.com/omartineza/csisounding

Short summary

Sting jets occur in some of the most damaging cyclones impacting Europe. We present the first climatology of sting-jet cyclones over the major ocean basins. Cyclones with sting-jet precursors occur over the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Southern Oceans, with implications for wind warnings. Precursor cyclones have distinct characteristics, even in reanalyses that are too coarse to fully resolve sting jets, evidencing the climatological consequences of strong diabatic cloud processes.