Sea‐breeze front (SBF) can cause dramatic changes in weather and air quality near the coast. However, the observation and forecast of its three‐dimensional (3‐D) fine‐scale structures have been challenging. Using mesoscale‐to‐large eddy simulations (LES) models and high‐resolution lidar measurement over Sendai Airport, here we perform a successful simulation of the observed 3‐D structures of an SBF for the first time. We show that frontal structures are characterized by a series of lobes (spaced ~500 m apart) aligned along the raised sea‐breeze head, where the shear between sea breeze and alongshore ambient flow aloft is evident. Local strong updrafts occur both in the frontal lobes of marine cold air and in the prefrontal warm air ascending the wedge of windward lobes. Downdrafts form behind the lifted marine cold air and trap air pollutants. These fine‐scale structures and vertical motions are repeatedly strengthened by the short‐term disturbances of gravity currents that move onshore and collide with the SBF. They are also affected by buildings and determine the detailed variations of surface winds. We conclude that advanced observation and modeling systems can potentially improve the prediction of coastal weather and environment.

Turbulent flow and its interaction with a sea breeze front (SBF) over an urban-like coast with a regular block array were investigated using a building-resolving computational fluid dynamics model. It was found that during daytime with an offshore ambient flow, streaky turbulent structures tended to grow within the convective boundary layer (CBL) over a warm urban surface ahead of the SBF. The structures were organized as streamwise streaks at an interval of a few hundred meters, which initiated at the rooftop level with strong wind shear and strengthens in the CBL with moderate buoyancy. The streaks then interacted with the onshore-propagating SBF as it made landfall. The SBF, which was initially characterized as a shallow and quasi-linear feature over the sea, developed three-dimensional structures with intensified updrafts at an elevated frontal head after landfall. Frontal updrafts were locally enhanced at intersections where the streaks merged with the SBF, which greatly increased turbulent fluxes at the front. The frontal line was irregular because of merging, tilting, and transformation effects of vorticity associated with streaky structures. Inland penetration of the SBF was slowed by the frictional effect of urban-like surfaces and turbulent flow on land. The overall SBF intensity weakened after the interaction with turbulent flow. These findings aid understanding of local weather over coastal cities during typical sea breeze conditions.

Moist convection occurred repeatedly in the midnight-to-morning hours of 11-16 June 1998 and yielded excessive rainfall in a narrow latitudinal corridor over East Asia, causing severe flood. Numerical experiments and composite analyses of a 5-day period are performed to examine the mechanisms governing nocturnal convection. Both simulations and observations show that a train of MCSs concurrently developed along a quasi-stationary mei-yu front and coincided with the impact of a monsoon surge on a frontogenetic zone at night. This process was regulated primarily by a nocturnal low-level jet (NLLJ) in the southwesterly monsoon that formed over southern China and extended to central China. In particular, the NLLJ acted as a mechanism of moisture transport over the plains. At its northern terminus, the NLLJ led to a zonal band of elevated conditionally unstable air where strong low-level ascent overcame small convective inhibition, triggering new convection in three preferred plains. An analysis of convective instability shows that the low-tropospheric intrusion of moist monsoon air generated CAPE of similar to 1000 (-1) kg(-1) prior to convection initiation, whereas free-atmospheric forcing was much weaker. The NLLJ-related horizontal advection accounted for most of the instability precondition at 100-175 J kg(-1) h(-1). At the convective stage, instability generation by the upward transport of moisture increased to similar to 100 J kg(-1) h(-1), suggesting that ascending inflow caused feedback in convection growth. The convection dissipated in late morning with decaying NLLJ and moisture at elevated layers. It is concluded that the diurnally varying summer monsoon acted as an effective discharge of available moist energy from southern to central China, generating the morning-peak heavy rainfall corridor.

Horizontal convective rolls (HCRs) that develop in sea breezes greatly influence local weather in coastal areas. In this study, the authors present a realistic simulation of sea-breeze HCRs over an urban-scale area at a resolution of a few meters. An advanced Down-Scaling Simulation System (DS3) is built to derive the analyzed data using a nonhydrostatic model and data assimilation scheme that drive a building-resolving computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The mesoscale-analyzed data well capture the inland penetration of the sea breeze in northeastern Japan. The CFD model reproduces the HCRs over Sendai Airport in terms of their coastal initiation, inland growth, streamwise orientation, specific locations, roll wavelength, secondary flows, and regional differences due to complex surfaces. The simulated HCRs agree fairly well with those observed by dual-Doppler lidar and heliborne sensors. Both the simulation and observation analyses suggest that roll updrafts typically originate in the narrow bands of low-speed streaks and warm air near the ground. The HCRs are primarily driven and sustained by a combination of wind shear and buoyancy forces within the slightly unstable sea-breeze layer. In contrast, the experiment without data assimilation exhibits a higher deficiency in the reproduction of roll characteristics. The findings highlight that CFD modeling, given reliable mesoscale weather and surface conditions, aids in high-precision forecasting of HCRs at unprecedented high resolutions, which may help determine the roll structure, dynamics, and impacts on local weather.

Horizontal convective rolls form in coastal areas around Sendai Airport during sea-breeze events. Using a building-resolving computational fluid dynamics model nested in an advanced forecast system with a data assimilation scheme, the authors perform a series of sensitivity experiments to investigate the impacts of land use and buildings on these rolls. The results show that the roll positions, intensities, and structures are significantly affected by variations in land use and the presence of buildings. Land-use heterogeneity is responsible for generating rolls with evident regional features. Major rolls tend to develop downwind of warm surfaces, and they dominate over neighboring rolls; thus, a heterogeneity-scale mode is imposed on the inherent roll wavelength. The roll's rapid growth is attributable to warm surfaces that initiate a strong coupling among turbulent thermals, convective updrafts, pressure perturbations, and secondary flows in sea breezes. The heterogeneity-induced features differ considerably from the nearly homogeneous features that form over uniform surfaces. Additionally, the wake flow behind buildings helps organize near-surface warm air into streamwise bands that drive streaky ejections. The building-induced turbulence acts to modify secondary flows and displace roll updrafts toward building wakes. Such effects are most effective over villages with scattered houses that are aligned with the ambient wind. Building signatures are elongated in downwind open areas due to sustained secondary circulations. An analysis of turbulent kinetic energy shows that both land use and buildings regulate energy generation and transport, resulting in a clear response in roll growth. Thus, including complex surfaces in forecast models helps determine detailed characteristics and structures of roll convection over coastal regions.

Four recent reanalyses-the 55-yr Japanese Reanalysis Project (JRA-55), Interim ECWMF Re-Analysis (ERA-I), NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)-are assessed to clarify their quality in representing the diurnal cycle over East Asia. They are found to present similar patterns/structure and summer progress of the mean wind diurnal cycle, whereas they exhibit some differences in diurnal amplitude, particularly for the low-level meridional wind. An evaluation with intense soundings suggests that the amplitude difference mainly results from the diurnal variation of mean bias that differs among reanalyses. The root-mean-square (RMS) error is found to have a diurnal variation more evident in CFSR and MERRA than that in JRA-55 and ERA-I, which strongly affects the representation of the varying diurnal amplitude at the peak hours of RMS error.Compared with satellite-derived rainfall, the four reanalyses are shown to reproduce well the rainfall diurnal cycle over East Asia in terms of large-scale terrain contrast, summer progress, and interannual variability. JRA-55 even presents a long-term increase of morning rainfall percentage over the east China plain over the past four decades, consistent with rain gauge observations. The four reanalyses exhibit some considerable discrepancies at regional scale; JRA-55 gives the best capture of the rainfall diurnal cycle over the Tibetan Plateau and the eastward propagation to the eastern lees. These results suggest that new reanalyses are potentially applicable for studying the large-scale diurnal variability over East Asia, whereas their different preferences, especially at regional scale, should be of concern in data application.

Analysis of the latest satellite rainfall and reanalysis datasets from 1998 to 2012 demonstrates that eastward-propagating rainfall episodes, which typically occur in late night and morning, are determinant factors for the rainfall diurnal cycle and climate anomalies over eastern China. The episode growth and propagation are facilitated by an elevated layer of conditionally unstable air in a mesoscale zone at their eastern leading edge. The convective available potential energy (CAPE), despite convection consumption and nocturnal cooling, decreases only from a high value to a moderate one during episode duration. An estimate of the CAPE generation budget suggests that low-level horizontal advection and vertical lifting of the warm moist air can produce sufficient CAPE to balance other stabilization effects, sustaining the mesoscale maximum of convective instability ahead of rainfall episodes. These instability geneses are pronounced at the convection growth stage and linked closely to a mesoscale nocturnal low-level jet. Thus, a proper representation of them in forecast models is essential for improved prediction of the warm-season rainfall.

To assess medium-range forecasts of detailed spatial distributions of the daily mean temperature, an ensemble downscaling forecast experiment was conducted using the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) nonhydrostatic model (NHM) with horizontal resolutions of 25 km and 5 km. Special attention was paid to the anomalously cool summers over northeastern Japan caused by northeasterly winds called Yamase. The results are validated against the daily mean surface temperatures observed by the Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System (AMeDAS) in the study area.Ensemble mean downscaling forecasts can successfully extract reliable signals with information about local circulations. The ensemble mean forecasts reduce the root mean square errors of the daily mean surface temperature by 15 % compared to single downscaling forecasts. The ensemble spreads also indicate the possibility of making prob-abilistic predictions that consider the effects of local circulations in addition to large-scale motions. The ensemble downscaling forecasts have 80 % larger spreads than the global forecasts with the JMA global spectral model at a resolution TL159L60 and approach the theoretical value.An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis indicates that the predictability depends on the EOF modes. The predictable periods are 8 days for the homogeneous mode over northeastern Japan, 5 days for the Yamase mode (east-west mode), and 2 days for the north-south mode. The dynamical downscaling can properly predict the amplitudes of the EOF modes. In particular, the dynamical downscaling can predict 90 % of the Yamase mode, as compared to 20 % prediction of the global model for the same mode.

Using satellite imaging of the Earth at night, we quantitatively assess the rapid growth of urban areas and investigate its impact on long-term surface warming at 214 medium and large cities over eastern China. Urban growth intensity is measured using the size of the area experiencing fast night-time light increase and the distance to temperature-observation sites. Surface warming, related closely to city size, also exhibits a strong association with urban growth. A rapid increase of surface temperature is observed mainly for cities undergoing rapid urbanization (RU). Such a relation is evident over Central, South, and Northwest China, but it is weak over Northeast China, implying regional variation of temperature responses to urban growth. Satellite-derived land-surface temperature analysis suggests that cities experiencing RU are more subject to the effects of urban heat island expansion, which explains the variations of warming rate among cities within the same region. These results underscore that surface warming induced by RU might be an important component of urban climate change in eastern China.

Diurnal variability of the summer monsoon over China, a key element affecting regional climate, is examined using the latest reanalysis dataset and satellite rain estimates. Diurnal variation of low‐level wind is found to be pronounced over South China during active monsoon days. Mean wind speed attains a maximum (minimum) in early morning (afternoon), with a diurnal range of 2–3 m/s, double that of inactive monsoon days. The largest amplitude typically appears at 850 hPa, consistent with radiosonde observations. Such a monsoon diurnal cycle can strengthen low‐level moisture transport at night by about 20% more than during the day. Nocturnal moisture fluxes converge toward Central China and lead to a meso‐synoptic‐scale moisture sink during the late night and morning, which plays a role in regulating the regional water budget on a diurnal time scale. Monsoon flow also helps provide substantial moisture over low‐lying areas in the morning hours. Correspondingly, morning rainfall undergoes a remarkable increase and greatly contributes to the diurnal cycle of summer rainfall. The strongest response comes from meso‐α‐scale rain events that not only become prominent during active monsoon days but also possess a dominant morning peak. These morning events occur mainly on the basins and plains of Central China, where the monsoon diurnal cycle promotes nighttime mesoscale convection. These tend to shift northward from June to August, with the progress of the monsoon diurnal cycle, thereby producing the morning‐peak summer rainband. The findings point to an efficiency of nocturnal monsoon flow influencing the warm‐season weather and climate over eastern China.