Investigation of orographic effects on two heavy rainfall events over southwestern Taiwan during the Mei-yu season

Orographic influences on the development of two heavy rainfall events over southwestern Taiwan during the Mei-yu season were analyzed. For the first event (5 June 1997), the maximum daily rainfall accumulation (∼371 mm) occurred over the southwest coast of Taiwan, whereas for the second event (20 May 2001), the maximum daily rainfall accumulation (∼535 mm) occurred over the southwestern windward slopes. The important processes for the development of heavy rainfall for these two events were studied from gridded data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and from surface rainfall data and numerical modeling results using the nonhydrostatic fifth-generation mesoscale model from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Pennsylvania State University (MM5).