A Study of Heavy Precipitation and Associated Thunderstorm Activity Over the West Coast of Gulf of Mexico using GOAS 8 Soundings and Images

Under the NASA/JSU Joint Venture (JOVE) augmentation Program a research program has been established to study the relationship between heaviest rainfalls and thunderstorm activity during the landfall of tropical cyclones/hurricanes over the Gulf of Mexico. In the present study, we explore this relationship by studying the Stability Indexes and CAPE which represent the thunderstorm activity, as derived from the daily GOES 8 satellite data soundings for the period October 15-30, 1998. We have also computed the atmospheric vertical motions using the CAPE values. The results of the study have suggested that the extreme values (highly significant according to the student 't' distribution) of Stability Indexes, CAPE and atmospheric vertical motions were noticed during October 16-18, 1998. These were associated with the thunderstorm activity during the passage of a tropical depression, which produced tornadoes and heavy precipitation during October 16-18, over the West Coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The results of the study will be presented and discussed.