The role of elevated terrain and the Gulf of Mexico in the production of severe local storm environments over North America

This work tests this hypothesis using two prescribed-ocean climate model experiments with North American topography removed or the Gulf of Mexico converted to land and analyzes how SLS environments and associated synoptic-scale drivers (southerly Great Plains low-level jets, drylines, elevated mixed layers, and extratropical cyclones) change relative to a control historical run.

Overall, SLS environments depend strongly on upstream elevated terrain but more weakly on the Gulf of Mexico. Removing elevated terrain substantially reduces SLS environments especially over the continental interior due to broad reductions in both thermodynamic instability and vertical wind shear, leaving a more zonally uniform residual distribution that is maximized near the Gulf coast and decays toward the continental interior.