Heavy precipitation events from tropical cyclone remnants in the Eastern United States

Tropical Cyclone Remnants (TCRs) have been responsible for producing a number of significant, heavy precipitation events in the eastern United States, often days after the tropical cyclones have made landfall almost anywhere along the Gulf Coast or the Eastern Seaboard. As part of a Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training (COMET) partnership project, Plymouth State College (PSC), in conjunction with the forecasters from several National Weather Services offices, began examining 13 TCR cases during the period 1989 to 1997. These systems affected the Eastern United States from Georgia north- and eastward (the region under study) to varying degrees. After acquiring cooperative station precipitation data, surface data, and upper air data for the periods associated with these events, detailed analyses were completed to develop a climatology of these phenomena. This paper concentrates on those cases and areas with the most extreme precipitation/flooding events and will relate the orographic features and system dynamics to the peak precipitation observations.