Regional Features of the 20–30 Day Periodic Behavior in the Southern Hemisphere Summer Circulation

Abstract

Abstract The Southern Hemispheric storm tracks exhibit a robust intraseasonal periodicity of 20–30 days as the leading mode of zonal‐mean eddy kinetic energy. To what extent this hemispheric‐scale mode of variability translates to smaller scales remains debated. This work studies the regional features of Southern Hemisphere storm tracks through a filtered variance analysis of local finite‐amplitude wave activity. While the synoptic variance is zonally elongated over the storm track, we find a strong enhancement of intraseasonal variability within the South Pacific. With a minimum strength of the storm track, this region is marked with 20–30 day periodic behavior of local wave activity and precipitation and is driven by enhanced variability of low‐level eddy heat flux on the same timescale. The local nature of 20–30 day periodicity offers a potential source of subseasonal to seasonal predictability for weather analysts and forecasters.

Keywords

• intraseasonal variability
• local finite‐amplitude wave activity