Study on Moist Potential Vorticity and Symmetric Instability during a Heavy Rain Event Occurred in the Jiang-Huai Valleys

In the light of the theory on moist potential vorticity (MPV) investigation was undertaken of the 700 hPa vertical (horizontal) component MP1 (MPV2) for the heavy rain event occurring in July 5–6, 1991. Results show that the distribution features of the two components were closely related to the development of a mesoscale cyclone as a rainstorm-causing weather system in the lower troposphere in such a way that the ambient atmosphere of which MPV1 > 0 and MPV2 < 0 with |MPV1| ≥ |MPV2| favored the genesis of conditional symmetric instability (CSI) and that, as indicated by calculations, a CSI sector was really existent in the lower troposphere during the heavy rain happening and contributed greatly to its development. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, under the grant No. 49775259.