Characteristics of Low Pressure Systems Associated with Intraseasonal Oscillation of Rainfall over Bangladesh during Boreal Summer

Abstract

Abstract Characteristics of low pressure systems (LPSs) responsible for submonthly-scale (7–25 days) intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) in rainfall over Bangladesh and their impact on the amplitude of active peaks are investigated for 29 summer monsoon seasons. Extreme and moderate active peaks are obtained based on the amplitude of 7–25-day-filtered rainfall series. By detecting the LPSs that formed over the Indian monsoon region, it was found that about 59% (62%) of extreme (moderate) active peaks of rainfall are related to LPSs. These LPSs have horizontal scale of about 600 km and vertical scale of about 9 km. For the extreme active peak, the locations of the LPS centers are clustered significantly over and around Bangladesh, accompanied by the maximum convergence in the southeast sector of the LPSs. After their formation, they tend to remain almost stationary over and around Bangladesh. In contrast, for the moderate active peak, the LPS centers are located over the Ganges Plain around 85°E, and the maximum convergence of the LPSs occurs around their centers. This difference in the convergence fields is closely associated with the geographical features to the north and east of Bangladesh and the horizontal scale of the LPSs. These features suggest that the amplitude of the active peaks in the submonthly-scale ISO is modulated by small differences in the locations of the LPS centers. These findings suggest that improved predictions of both genesis location and the tracks of the LPSs are crucial to forecasting seasonal rainfall over Bangladesh.