Evaluating Frontal Precipitation Consistency in Reanalysis Datasets

Precipitation from atmospheric fronts accounts for a significant portion of the total precipitation in the mid-latitudes, with some locations receiving the majority of their precipitation from atmospheric fronts. It is therefore important to understand how frontal rainfall is represented in reanalysis data. This presentation assesses the consistency of frontal rainfall between 8 different reanalysis products: ERA-20C, ERA-40, ERA Interim, ERA5, JRA-55, MERRA-2, NCEP-CFSR, and NOAA20C, as well as 3 different satellite products: CMORPH, GPCP, and TRMM. To avoid biases due to the choice of diagnostic used to identify atmospheric fronts, 2 different detection methods are used. We then subset the data by various parameters such as front type, front strength, and geographical location, and use these analyses to hypothesize on the factors driving the spread in atmospheric frontal precipitation within the datasets.