A preliminary analysis and comparison between Typhoon Matsa (2005) and an equatorial cluster of penetrative convection

Cloud tops and rainfall structures of Typhoon Matsa (2005) and the Equatorial penetration convective cluster (EPCC) which is located in the southern South China Sea are analyzed and compared based on the data from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). Firstly, the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) and the EPCC which penetrated into the TTL are illuminated and defined. And then, the cloud tops and precipitation structures of Typhoon Matsa and the EPCC are analyzed and compared. The results are as followings: (1) In heavy rain areas, ice particle scattering occurrs at the cloudtop of Matsa and the EPCC, but the scattering intensity of the EPCC is much stronger with 85 GHz brightness temperature all below 180 K and the difference between the cloud tops from the PR and the VIRS for the EPCC being larger as well as the curve of VIRS cloudtop brightness temperature being flat. (2) The percent of samples of deep convection, and the percent of penetration convection, and esp. the percent of deep convection accounted for by penetration convection in the EPCC are more than those in Matsa, with the clouds in the Matsa and the EPCC from 10 to 20 km whose top heights dominate between 10 and 12 km, but the distribution of PR cloud tops between 10 and 20 km in the EPCC relatively continuous and wide. (3) Stratiformis precipitation is the predominant type in Matsa and contributes more rainfall to the total. However, convective precipitation is mainly found in the EPCC with larger ratios of convective area to stratiformis area, convective rainfall to stratiformis rainfall for the EPCC than those for Matsa. (4) The results also show that the profiles of both the convective and stratiformis precipitation for the EPCC are deeper than Matsa with the convective and stratiformis profile depth being 18 and 11 km, respectively. In addition, the fact that, the percent of samples of penetrative convection in the EPCC more than Matsa as well as the profile of convective and stratiformis precipitation deeper than Matsa seems to suggest that the local vertical convective intensity of the EPCC is stronger than Matsa.