![]() As a result of this, the authors monitored surface-atmospheric conditions during late June and early July 2018 to study the impacts of Hurricane Maria induced land modification on convective storm events in Puerto Rico via the Rapid Response-Convection, Aerosol, and Synoptic-Effects in the Tropics (RAPID-CAST) field campaign (described in Section 2.1). The wet season accounts for 79% of the island's rainfall, with the summer months scaffolding the most convectively active period. The wet season is bimodal, with a period of reduced rainfall during June to July known as the midsummer drought (Angeles et al., 2010 D. Puerto Rico's rainfall climatology is characterized by a wet season occurring between April and October, and a dry season occurring between November and March. The extensive damage to the island's land cover (Flynn et al., 2018) can alter local land-atmosphere interactions and the general climatology of the island. Maria caused over 2,975 casualties (Kishore et al., 2018 Milken Institute, 2018) in addition to catastrophic wind and flood damage-which crippled the power grid (Schladebeck, 2017) and severely damaged roadways-thereby suspending evacuation efforts and the movement of supplies. Maria was the strongest hurricane to make landfall on Puerto Rico since 1928, with wind speeds exceeding 250 km h −1, eclipsing Jeanne and Georges. ![]() Hurricane Irma brushed the northern part of the island and caused flooding in the capital city of San Juan (home to nearly half a million people), whereas the eye of Hurricane Maria traveled diagonally across the island from the southeast to the northwest. In September 2017, Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. While the frequency of hurricane occurrence has decreased in recent decades, storms with the intensity of Jeanne and Georges are occurring more frequently due to global warming (Kang & Elsner, 2015), large scale changes in climate (Knutson et al., 2013, 2019) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modifications (Tang & Neelin, 2004). Examples include Hurricanes Jeanne and Georges, which caused significant damage across Puerto Rico (Bennett & Mojica, 2008 Lawrence & Cobb, 2005). Hurricanes can cause severe flooding, extreme winds, and storm surge which lead to catastrophic loss of life, extreme damage to critical infrastructure, erosion, and defoliation (Tanner et al., 1991). The island of Puerto Rico is home to over 3.5 million people who live under the threat of hurricanes during the late rainfall season (July to November). Results of the numerical experiments indicate that surface to atmosphere interactions were significantly modified when the land cover was altered, and that the highest deviations between pre and postMaria convection occurred over elevated areas with extreme hurricane induced land changes, such as the Cordillera Central mountain range and the El Yunque rainforest. Pre and postMaria land classifications were then assimilated into the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System cloud resolving model for the simulation of the June 23 to Jperiod under two land conditions. Smaller changes included a decrease in cultivated agricultural land cover by 0.76%, along with wetland and water increases of 0.62% and 0.25%, respectively. Results of the analysis indicate that the island suffered significant forest damage-much of which registered as a 28.35% increase in barren land and a 10.85% increase in pasture. Herein, we employed LANDSAT-8 image mosaics to quantify the hurricane induced land modification. This article investigates modifications to surface-atmospheric interactions due to Hurricane Maria induced land damage and the associated impacts on local convective dynamics. Hurricane Maria drastically altered the landscape across the island of Puerto Rico.
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