A study on certain aspects of kinetic energy associated with western disturbances over northwest India

Abstract

The winter precipitation in western Himalayas, particularly over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and neighborhood is important from the point of view of agriculture, horticulture, transport, logistics and glacier basins that feed the rivers of north India. The precipitation is due to the large-scale interaction between the mid latitude and the tropical air masses. The interaction process leads to the formation or intensification of synoptic systems known as western disturbances that move from west to east. In this paper, kinetic energy budget terms for an intense western disturbance that occurred over northwest India have been analyzed. An intense western disturbance, that gave widespread precipitation over the northwestern parts of the country, moved across the region from 19 to 21 January 1997. The data required for the study was extracted from National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis datasets. The results indicate that the strong flux convergence and adiabatic production of kinetic energy takes place during the passage of western disturbance over north India. It is found that the meridional component of kinetic energy contributes for the generation, whereas, the zonal component of kinetic energy contributes for the destruction in the adaibatic generation of kinetic energy along the track of the western disturbance.