Abstract Hainan Island and Leizhou Peninsula in South China are characterized by abundant deep convection initiation (DCI), relatively complex orography, and strong sea breezes. This study uses the high‐resolution (0.02° × 0.02°, 10‐min interval) Himawari‐8 satellite data to identify the isolated DCI events and employs statistical methods to relate the DCI occurrence to local orography and wind conditions. The statistics are based on 10,731 DCI events that occurred during the daytime of 412 locally forced DCI days in the warm seasons of 2016–2022. A 1‐month WRF simulation, driven by the averaged reanalysis fields of these locally forced DCI days, is conducted to derive the local winds in the study area. The spatial distribution of DCI shows hotspots over mountains with high elevation and large relief amplitude, as well as over certain coastal plains experiencing strong sea breezes. DCI probability generally increases with elevation, relief amplitude, and speed of sea breezes, exhibiting significant linear correlations. The hotspots of DCI events tend to appear over mountains in the late morning and subsequently extend to coastal plains with strong sea breezes in the afternoon. The quantitative relationships established in this study provide useful insights for improving the forecasting of deep convection over tropical islands.
Lu et al. (Sun,) studied this question.