Unclouding the Correlations: A Principal Component Analysis of Convective Environments

In this study, we leverage 25 years of observations from spaceborne radars, along with21 coincident reanalysis data, to determine how the depth and width of precipitating convective22 storms are related to the large-scale environments in which they are observed. We find that the23 deepest convective features are observed in environments markedly different from the24 environments of other convective features, including organized convection. Deep storms co25 occur with relatively dry, unstable conditions, while wide storms are observed in moist,26 relatively stable environments. We identify eight large-scale environmental variables that serve27 to distinguish between storm modes, and then show that principal component analysis can be28 used to condense this information into just two scalar variables. The methodology presented29 offers a succinct way to describe a storm’s environment and will allow us to better relate a30 storm’s initial environment to its dynamical characteristics.