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The occurrence frequency and rainfall production of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) relative to smaller groups of convective clouds over the tropical oceans is not well known. Eighty days of shipboard radar data collected during the recent Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) were used to provide a detailed view of convection in the western Pacific warm pool, a region of global climatological significance. The aim of this study was to document the frequency of occurrence, rainfall production, and depth of convection observed during TOGA COARE within a simple and meaningful framework of convective horizontal organization. Organization was characterized in terms of the horizontal scale and morphology of convective systems. Precipitation events were defined based on whether they attained the length scale of an MCS, and on whether convection was organized into lines.
Rickenbach et al. (Tue,) studied this question.