Picornell, M.A. (INM, Centro Meteorologico de Baleares)
Genoves, A. (same affiliation)
Jansa, A. (same affiliation)
Navascues, B. (INM, Servicio de Prediccion Numerica)
In the Western Mediterranean mesoscale cyclones are observed and, although sometimes they are not important by themselves, they are closely related to weather in the Mediterranean and, occasionally, with the ocurrence of severe weather events. Thereafter it is interesting to detect and to typify these cyclones.
The information about mesoscalar cyclones can be obtained from manual analyses and this allows to use the satellite imagery and the conceptual models. By using this method, in the INM a catalogue of mesoscale cyclones in the Western Mediterranean was elaborated for the period between 1992 and 1995, and it is included in the 'BOLETIN PEMMOC'. But this technique results very laborious and it can hardly be applied to long periodes of time and to extensive areas.
Thereafter, it is interesting to know how far it is possible to detect objectively mesoscale cyclones using the numerical model analyses. This paper tries to determine the mesocyclones detectability of the models LAM, with 0.91░ of resolution, and HIRLAM, with 0.5░ of resolution, taking as reference the cyclones catalogue obtained by the manual method. In this way, we compare the mesocyclones location frequency, their intensity, the cyclones maximum concentration areas ..., in an area centered over the Western Mediterranean for a period that includes summer and autumn of 1995.