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Sub-seasonal prediction of the 2008 extreme snowstorms over South China

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Abstract

Extraordinarily frequent and long-lasting snowstorms affected China in January 2008, causing extensive social and economic damages. The potential predictability of such extreme events on the sub-seasonal timescale has been evaluated using results from the hindcast experiments by the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model. The spatial distribution of precipitation during the period can be successfully reproduced with a 10–15 days leadtime, although the intensity is weaker than observations. The model’s success lies in the timely prediction of large-scale atmospheric circulation anomalies, such as the atmospheric blocking over the mid-high latitudes and the southwesterly flow associated with the Bay of Bengal trough in the low latitudes, but the predicted cold air is too strong while the warm air too weak, leading to an underestimation of precipitation along the main rainbelt. Meanwhile, the capture of those circulation anomalies in the initial states and their persistence in subsequent model predictions has played a key role in the predictability of such an extreme event. Detailed analysis has shown that sea surface temperature and low-frequency signals, such as the Arctic Oscillation and the Madden–Julian Oscillation, may also be important during the process.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0602104). The authors acknowledge the NCEP/NCAR and the Beijing Climate Center (BCC) for providing the reanalysis data and the BCC-CSM model hindcast outputs, respectively. We appreciate the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments, which lead to significant improvements of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Lina Zheng, Yaocun Zhang & Anning Huang

  2. Dongying Meteorological Office of Shandong Province, Dongying, China

    Lina Zheng

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  1. Lina Zheng
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  2. Yaocun Zhang
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  3. Anning Huang
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Correspondence to Yaocun Zhang.

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Zheng, L., Zhang, Y. & Huang, A. Sub-seasonal prediction of the 2008 extreme snowstorms over South China. Clim Dyn 55, 1979–1994 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05361-9

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