The Australian Northwest Cloudband: Climatology, Mechanisms, and Association with Precipitation

Kimberley J Reid; Ian Simmonds; Claire L Vincent; Andrew D King

Journal article

The Australian Northwest Cloudband: Climatology, Mechanisms, and Association with Precipitation

Kimberley J Reid, Ian Simmonds, Claire L Vincent, Andrew D King

JOURNAL OF CLIMATE | AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC | Published : 2019

DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0031.1

Abstract

Australian northwest cloudbands (NWCBs) are continental-scale bands of continuous cloud that stretch from northwest to southeast Australia. In earlier studies, where the characteristics of NWCBs and their relationship with precipitation were identified from satellite imagery, there was considerable uncertainty in the results due to limited quality and availability of data. The present study identifies NWCBs from 31 years of satellite data using a pattern-matching algorithm. This new climatology is the longest record based entirely on observations. Our findings include a strong annual cycle in NWCB frequency, with a summer maximum and winter minimum, and a statistically significant increase i..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Claire Vincent Author Earth Sciences

Ian Simmonds Author Earth Sciences

Andrew King Author Earth Sciences

Related Projects (3)

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CLIMATE EXTREMES

Tropical climate change, the Hadley and Walker Circulations, and Australian climate

Tropical climate systems, especially the overturning circulations and monsoons, have undergone change in recent decades and are expected to ..

Improving the seasonal prediction of Australian rainfall extremes

This project aims to investigate the predictability of Australian extreme rainfall using the latest Bureau of Meteorology seasonal predictio..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC)

Awarded by ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

Awarded by ARC

Funding Acknowledgements

The work of K. Reid was funded by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning of the Victorian Government, the work of I. Simmonds was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC; DP140102855), the work of C. Vincent was funded by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023), and the work of A. King was funded by the ARC (DE180100638). The authors thank William Wright for useful discussions, and Irina Rudeva for providing the front dataset.