Bryony Puxley - June 15

School of Meteorology MS Thesis Defense

Precipitation Whiplash Events Across the Southern Great Plains of the United States

Bryony Puxley

Tuesday, June 15^th

2:00pm

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The Southern Great Plains is a region that is prone to precipitation extremes and transitions between them which have direct impacts on agriculture, infrastructure, water quality and water quantity. However, our current overall understanding of transitions between precipitation extremes, including seasonal and annual characteristics as well as spatial and temporal patterns across the Southern Great Plains is lacking. Most previous research has focused primarily on the characteristics and impacts of transitions on the annual scale, and those that have looked on smaller timescales have not completed an analysis across the Southern Great Plains. In this study, we examined the characteristics and climatology of transitions between precipitation extremes on the subseasonal-to-seasonal scale across the Southern Great Plains between 1981 and 2018. Transitions between precipitation extremes were defined using a percentile method. This study found that all years between 1981 and 2018 experienced a transition event somewhere within the Southern Great Plains, with the Fall season being the time off year when these events are most likely to occur. Highlighting the importance of transitions between precipitation extremes, as well as the secondary peak in annual precipitation that occurs during the Fall in driving these events across this region.