Progress in the study of winter storm track and its precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere

Storm tracks refer to the high-frequency area of mid-latitude cyclonic activities, which act on the global climate system by affecting the transport of a wide range of heat, water vapor, and angular momentum. This paper reviews and evaluates the important results of storm tracks from the aspects of their synoptic dynamic characteristics, influencing factors, climate changes, as well as their precipitation characteristics. These results demonstrate that the two major storm track regions over the Pacific and Atlantic in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are the products of the combined effects of atmospheric baroclinicity, sea-land distribution, large topographic effects, and atmospheric diabatic heating. At the same time, results also show that storm tracks are affected by large-scale perturbations such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Arctic Oscillation (AO), the Pacific Ocean SST anomaly, and the Southern Oscillation (SO). By analyzing the characteristics of precipitation structure and spatial distribution of precipitation in the cyclone center of the storm track, this paper also reveals the dislocation between the center area of atmospheric disturbance in the storm track and the center area of precipitation. This new finding is of clear significance for further understanding the relationship between atmospheric disturbance and precipitation in the middle and high latitudes, and further evaluating the impact of storm track precipitation and its latent heat on climate change. In the end, this paper provides prospects for future studies on cloud and precipitation in storm tracks.