Extreme precipitation events in the Polish Carpathians and their synoptic determinants

Heavy rainfalls and consequent floods arc the most important extreme events in Central Europe in terms of frequency and economic losses. The purpose of the study is to evaluate regional extreme precipitation events in the Polish Carpathian Mountains as well as to determine the circulation basis for these events. Extreme precipitation values were identified based on daily precipitation totals measured at almost 70 weather stations in the Polish Carpathians between 1951 and 2015. The analysis concentrates on daily mean areal precipitation totals in excess of 100 mm per day as well as 50 and 30 mm, which causes flooding in the Carpathians. All extreme precipitation data were analyzed from a synoptic perspective, with special attention paid to pressure patterns over Central Europe. The analysis confirms that the heaviest rainfalls are affected by the situations with the NNE airflow. However, analyses with the application of the upper tropospheric data brought some new findings on the precipitation extreme topic. It turned out that most cases with significant rains occurred when the mid-tropospheric advection was from the southern sector (during the typical N and NE advections in the lower part).