Convective suppression before and during the United States Northern Great Plains flash drought of 2017

Gerken, Tobias; Bromley, Gabriel T.; Ruddell, Benjamin L.; Williams, Skylar; Stoy, Paul C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4155-2018

Articles | Volume 22, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4155-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4155-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 8

Research article

|

07 Aug 2018

Research article |

| 07 Aug 2018

Convective suppression before and during the United States Northern Great Plains flash drought of 2017

Tobias Gerken, Gabriel T. Bromley, Benjamin L. Ruddell, Skylar Williams, and Paul C. Stoy

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4155-2018-supplement

Data sets

Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily (GHCN-Daily), Version 3.22 NOAA National Climatic Data Center M. J. Menne, I. Durre, B. Korzeniewski, S. McNeal, K. Thomas, X. Yin, S. Anthony, R. Ray, R. S. Vose, B. E. Gleason, and T. G. Houston https://doi.org/10.7289/V5D21VHZ

The Integrated Surface Database: Recent Developments and Partnerships A. Smith, N. Lott, and R. Vose https://doi.org/10.1175/2011BAMS3015.1

USDM data National Drought Mitigation Center http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu

Short summary

An unprecedented flash drought took place across parts of the US Northern Great Plains and Canadian Prairie Provinces during the summer of 2017 that in some areas was the worst in recorded history. We show that this drought was preceded by a breakdown of land–atmosphere coupling, reducing the likelihood of convective precipitation. It may be useful to monitor land–atmosphere coupling to track and potentially forecast drought development.