Two case studies of severe storms in the Mediterranean using AMSU

Abstract. Mediterranean storms and their associated upper level features are diagnosed here using Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) observations. AMSU-A channel 8 is used to identify upper-level intrusions of stratospheric air, which are often present upstream of heavy precipitating areas, while a combination of AMSU-B channels 3 and 5 is chosen to discriminate moderate to heavily precipitating areas. This precipitation detection method provides results that are in good agreement with TRMM rainfall product and independent ground-based precipitation data. These tools allow us to follow the concomitant evolution of two severe rainfall events in the Mediterranean region and associated upper-level features.