Seasonal Change of the Diurnal Cycle of Precipitation over Japan and Malaysia

Abstract

The diurnal cycle of precipitation is investigated using ground-based hourly observations for more than 10 years both in Japan and Malaysia. The diurnal cycle of precipitation in Japan is classified into three clusters. The first one has a peak in the morning, and the stations categorized into this cluster are located in coastal regions. The second cluster has two peaks in the morning and in the evening. These stations are located in an inland region. The morning peak in the above two clusters is dominant in June, when it is ?baiu? in Japan. Baiu is the rainy season related to the southwest Asian monsoon. The third cluster is an exceptional case. No morning peak is observed in the stations of the third cluster and they have a comparatively strong evening peak. In the case of the Malay Peninsula, the inland region has a pronounced peak of rainfall at 1600 LST; the magnitude exceeds the mean of each month by 200%. This evening peak is too sharp to be represented by a 24-h-cycle sine wave decomposed by Fourier transform. The intensity also becomes higher at the peak time (1500 LST). The magnitude of the diurnal cycle of mean intensity is larger than the annual cycle of monthly mean intensity. The morning peak of precipitation is observed during the southwest monsoon season on the west coast, and during the northeast monsoon season on the east coast. The intensity of precipitation is not significantly high during this period; namely, the increase of the probability or the duration of precipitation forms this morning peak. These evidences indicate the mechanism of the convective rainfall by the thermodynamic forcing in the evening, and the low-level convergence between the local land?sea breeze and the predominant monsoon wind in the morning.