A Climatology and Life‐Cycle Characteristics of Atmospheric Fronts and Their Associated Precipitation

Atmospheric fronts are one of the main sources of mid‐latitude variability. We employ a novel method for identifying and tracking fronts and frontal precipitation. Thermal and dynamical variables are used to identify fronts as areal objects in space, which are tracked in time using the open‐source TempestExtremes software package. Precipitation objects are co‐located to identify frontal precipitation. The method is subjected to validation and sensitivity tests using manually curated data from the National Weather Service. Climatologies of fronts and frontal precipitation are computed from reanalysis and observations; fronts are present upwards of 14% of the time in the storm tracks, and represent the majority (up to 90%) of total and extreme precipitation. Novel aspects of the method are showcased through the lifetime characteristics of fronts across North America. Three sets of warm and cold fronts were discovered, and their duration, distance‐traveled, and translation velocity are examined.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

• Publication date

  2025-08-16

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1029/2024JD041609
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Evaluation of present-day extreme precipitation over the United States: an inter-comparison of convection and dynamic permitting configurations of E3SMv1

  2023cited by this paper
• Machine Learning‐Based Detection of Weather Fronts and Associated Extreme Precipitation in Historical and Future Climates

  2022cited by this paper
• On Objective Identification of Atmospheric Fronts and Frontal Precipitation in Reanalysis Datasets

  2022influential reference
• Compound precipitation and wind extremes over Europe and their relationship to extratropical cyclones

  2021cited by this paper
• TempestExtremes v2.1: A Community Framework for Feature Detection, Tracking and Analysis in Large Datasets

  2021cited by this paper
• Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission (IMERG)

  2020influential reference
• The ERA5 global reanalysis

  2020influential reference
• Extratropical Cyclones: A Century of Research on Meteorology’s Centerpiece

  2019cited by this paper
• Automated detection of weather fronts using a deep learning neural network

  2019cited by this paper
• A simple diagnostic for the detection of atmospheric fronts

  2017influential reference
• When during Their Life Cycle Are Extratropical Cyclones Attended by Fronts

  2017cited by this paper
• TempestExtremes: a framework for scale-insensitive pointwise feature tracking on unstructured grids

  2016cited by this paper
• High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP v1.0) for CMIP6

  2016cited by this paper
• Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization

  2015cited by this paper
• Atmospheric fronts in current and future climates

  2014cited by this paper
• Two Modes of Change of the Distribution of Rain

  2014influential reference
• The importance of fronts for extreme precipitation

  2013cited by this paper
• Meteorological Causes of the Secular Variations in Observed Extreme Precipitation Events for the Conterminous United States

  2012cited by this paper
• Identification and Climatology of Southern Hemisphere Mobile Fronts in a Modern Reanalysis

  2012cited by this paper
• How much Northern Hemisphere precipitation is associated with extratropical cyclones?

  2012influential reference
• Quantifying the Relevance of Cyclones for Precipitation Extremes

  2012cited by this paper
• A global climatology of atmospheric fronts

  2011cited by this paper
• Objective identification, typing and tracking of the complete life‐cycles of cyclonic features at high spatial resolution

  2010cited by this paper
• Water

  2010cited by this paper
• Probabilistic clustering of extratropical cyclones using regression mixture models

  2007cited by this paper
• A Climatology of Surface Baroclinic Zones

  2002cited by this paper
• New perspectives on the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks

  2002cited by this paper
• Heavy Cold-Season Precipitation in the Northwestern United States: Synoptic Climatology and an Analysis of the Flood of 17-18 January 1986

  1999cited by this paper
• Objective fronts

  1998cited by this paper
• Tracking Hurricanes

  1966cited by this paper
• Experiments in numerical objective frontal analysis

  1964cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.