Movement characteristics of persistent extreme precipitation events over China during the warm season using high spatiotemporal resolution data

Abstract Moving persistent extreme precipitation events (PEPEs) can cause severe disasters along their tracks. However, a PEPE typically consists of multiple rain cells that evolve and move differently from one another, rendering the conventional single-center tracking method incapable of capturing their respective characteristics. Here we use a multi-rain cell tracking method to characterize the movement of PEPEs during the warm season (May to September) over China, utilizing high-resolution precipitation data at half‑hourly temporal and 0.1° spatial resolutions for the period 1998–2024. Based on the movement distance and direction, PEPEs are clustered into the long-distance eastward-moving, short-distance eastward-moving, northeastward-moving, and westward-moving types, which are most prevalent over Southeast China, the Tibetan Plateau (TP), Northeast China, and the southern China, respectively. Temporally, the frequency of these four types of events peaks progressively from May to August, and the PEPEs with longer movement distances tend to occur in the early morning. In terms of large-scale circulation patterns, long-distance eastward-moving PEPEs are favored by the westward extension of the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH); short-distance eastward-moving PEPEs are associated with a meridional dipole of geopotential height anomaly around the TP; the northeastward-moving type is likely influenced by a wave-train circulation pattern in high latitudes; westward-moving PEPEs occur more frequently when the WPSH extends northwestward. These findings provide a comprehensive climatology of PEPE movement and highlight distinct circulation controls, which may aid in the prediction of moving extreme precipitations.