Supercell convective environments in Spain based on ERA5: hail and non-hail differences

Abstract

Severe convective storms, in particular supercells, are occasionally responsible for a large number of property losses and damage in Spain. This paper aims to study the synoptic configurations and pre-convective environments in a dataset of 262 supercells during 2011–2020 in Spain. The events are grouped into supercells with hail (diameter larger than 5 cm) and without hail and the results are compared. ERA5 reanalysis is used to study the synoptic configurations and proximity atmospheric profiles related to the supercell events at the initial time. In addition, temperature, convective available potential energy, convective inhibition, lifting condensation level, level of free convection, height of freezing level, wind shear and storm-relative helicity are obtained for each event. Results show that supercells are more frequent on the Mediterranean coast during the warm season. Some of the variables analyzed present statistically significant differences between hail and non-hail events. In particular, supercells with hail are characterized by higher median values of most-unstable convective available potential energy than supercells without hail.