Structure of Mesoscale Convective Systems in Northwestern Mexico during North American Monsoon by GPM Radar

Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) are an essential source of precipitation in the northwestern of Mexico. Besides, They can generate severe weather, including flash floods, hail, lightning, and intense winds in low levels, and contribute to mixing and heat transport via latent heat release. A better description of its structure, precipitation, and microphysics process can help us improve the calculation of latent heating and develop better convection parameterization, satellite rainfall retrievals, and simulations of the MCSs. In northwestern Mexico, the central area of the North American Monsoon, it is impossible to study the MCS internal structure utilizing ground radar because this region needs an optimal radar network. We utilize Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) to combat this. The DPR uses Ka-band (35.5 GHz) and Ku-band (13.6 GHz) reflectivity; both have a pixel size of ~ 5 km. Ku-band (Ka-band) has a swath width of 245 km (245 km as of Mayo 2018, previously 120 km) and a vertical resolution of 250 m (250/500 m). With this GPM radar data, we study the vertical structure of two MCSs: continental (2015-08-03) and oceanic (2022-08-06). We found convective elements (40-dBZ radar reflectivity) in MCS continental (~ 14 km) are higher than MCS oceanic (~10 km), which indicate that the convective core in continental MCS is more intense than maritime MCS likely result from large values of buoyancy to support deeper convection. Also, we found that MCS continental produces a maximum precipitation rate (2.1 log (mm hr-1)) greater than MCS oceanic (1.9 log (mm hr-1)).