North American Cyclone Teleconnection Relationships

This work examines 30 years of cold season cyclone tracks over North America and examines potential associations with the NAO and PNA teleconnections. Both tropical and extra-tropical cyclones are important features by which the atmosphere is able to transport energy and momentum from the tropics to the poles via the mid-latitudes. They are products of synoptic-scale changes in the general circulation across the mid-latitudes and reflect the teleconnections that are present to affect those changes. While many studies have documented and archived the individual cyclone tracks for many years, this archive has not been updated since the early 2000s in any consistent way. This study uses the NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis of surface pressure data for cold season months of October through March of 1980-81 to 2009-10 to obtain centers of lowest pressure and establish a track of them on a daily basis. We then used the ArcGIS Spatial Analysis line density module to produce a raster grid of frequencies. Each grid cell became a variable by which we obtained principle components of the tracks and correlate the components to the PNA and NAO. Future research will focus on expanding this analysis to the summer months and for investigating the relationships of cyclones to other teleconnections such as ENSO and the MJO.