Landfalling tropical cyclones accelerate due to land–sea thermal and roughness contrasts

Changes in the translation speed of landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) pose great challenges in disaster preparedness. While some recent studies have discussed the increased chance of a reduction in the annual-mean translation speed of TCs after landfall, such changes before landfall have not been systematically investigated, especially for short-term variations (that is, hour-to-day timescales). Here we show, first based on observations, that globally, a TC about to make landfall tends to accelerate towards the coast, with an average acceleration of about 0.83 m s−1 per day, which means that the mean translation speed of a landfalling TC increases by ~48% during the 60-h period before landfall. Such an…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 72293604, 42105059, 42225501
• FU
  Fudan University
• FR
  Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

  Award: 2243300004