Climatic Characteristics of Summer Convective and Stratiform Precipitation in Southern China Based on Measurements by TRMM Precipitation Radar

The characteristics of summer convective and stratiform precipitation in southern China are investigated based on measurements by TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) from 1998 to 2007. Results indicate that the frequency of stratiform precipitation is two times higher than that of convective precipitation, but the conditional rain rate of convective precipitation is nearly four times larger than that of stratiform precipitation, which result in the two types of precipitation have the same contribution to total rain. The distributions of both convective and stratiform precipitation suggest remarkable regionality. The frequency of convective precipitation reaches the peak in the afternoon over most of southern China, while the frequency of stratiform precipitation distributes mildly. The diurnal cycles of convective and stratiform precipitation profiles are mainly displayed in the variation of “storm top”, namely, the variation of precipitation cloud depth. Moreover, the profiles of two types of precipitation over different regions are obviously distinct. The cross sections of two types of precipitation not only show that the variation of the “storm top” of convective precipitation is much sharper than that of stratiform precipitation, but also show the diurnal cycle of the conditional rain rate of stratiform precipitation is sharper than that of convective precipitation. The conditional rain rate of stratiform precipitation changes more significantly among different regions.