Extreme precipitation events over southern India during the year 2015-
Curious interactions of El Nino, MJO, and associated waves
Abstract
The cause of extreme precipitation events, which deadly flooded Tamil
Nadu state of southern India during the northeast monsoon season of 2015
was investigated, and the results were presented in this paper. Though a
strong El Nino prevailed during the events, the effect of El Nino is
suppressed by the tropical variabilities in the Indian Ocean. A power
spectrum analysis was performed to find out the kind of tropical
variabilities in NCEP variables like wind fields, Omega, precipitation
rate, and soil moisture at 0-10 cm. The spectrum analysis resulted in
significant periodicities of 30-40 days and 7-20 days during the extreme
events over southern India. Those frequencies were linked with the
convectively coupled equatorial waves (CCEWs) like Madden-Julian
Oscillations (MJO), and, it was found that the cause of El Nino’s
suppression is a manifestation of the CCEWs. The dynamical mechanism
behind those interactions was investigated to know the specific
connections of two major tropical variabilities El Nino and MJO. Further
exploration was done by performing composite analysis of extreme
precipitation events during historical El Nino (moderate to very strong)
and MJO (active phases over the Indian Ocean) events from 1997-2014 to
know the possible interaction between El Nino and MJO. The composite
analysis contributed an insight into the interactions of El Nino and
MJO. This analysis concludes a hypothesis, which states that if a
prevailing, moderate to very strong El Nino as a background
low-frequency wave superimposed with high-frequency wave like active MJO
in the equatorial Indian Ocean during October-December season, then
blended El Nino & MJO wave suppresses the effect of background
prevalent El Nino. Such a clampdown of El Nino by blended El Nino & MJO
wave roots the cause of extreme precipitation over the southeastern
India. This study reveals a new dimension to the El Nino and MJO
interactions in intraseasonal time scale, which could be exploited in
the prediction of extreme precipitation events during northeast monsoon
season.