Abstract
This study investigates the characteristics of the air mass related with winter precipitation events in Yeongdong region, which are classified into three precipitation-types (mountain, cold-coastal, and warm-coastal types) based on the lower tropospheric wind direction. To do this, 52 heavy precipitation events are selected and classified into the three types from the 7-year (1995-2001) winter precipitation data in Yeongdong region. Using the corresponding National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis data, some anomalies of meteorological elements for each precipitation type are analyzed. The results are summarized as follows; 1) mountain-type precipitation occurs typically under the synoptic pattern with an anticyclone near Hokkaido and a cyclone south of Japan, while some anomalies of pressure, temperature, and specific humidity in the vicinity of these pressure center are closely correlated with event-precipitation amounts at Daegwallyeong. 2) cold-coastal type precipitation often appears as a cold anticyclone develops over the Manchuria, while event-precipitation amounts at Gangneung are closely correlated with the anomalies of sea level pressure and surface temperature in the Manchuria. It supports that cold-coastal type precipitation is related with the cold air which flows over the relatively warm surface of the East sea. 3) warm-coastal type precipitation often appears when a center of cyclone traverses the southern part of Korea from west to east. It is, however, not found that there are close relationships between the anomalies of meteorological elements and event-precipitation amounts at Daegwallyeong and Gangneung.