THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WATER VAPOR PLUME IN THE HEAVY RAIN EVENTS DURING 21—24 JUNE 2002

GMS-5 water vapor imagery and NCAR/NCEP reanalysis data are used to analysis the characteristics of water vapor plume (WVP) during 21—24 June 2002 heavy rain events in the Meiyu front. A tropical WVP is the remarkable feature on the series of daily-mean water vapor imagery. It stretches northeastward from the Bay of Bengal along the east of Tibet an Plateau to the Yangtze River and Huaihe River Basins, and interacts with the mid-latitude WVP. Therefore the mesoscale convective systems occur in succession within the tropical WVP no matter how the water vapor pattern changed.