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I have a time series of moisture flux convergence. The values show positive and negative. What are these positive and negative values say? Can somebody help me how to interpret it? How it is related to precipitation?

Whether positive values shows week precipitation and negative values shows strong precipitation?

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you add a bit more context? I would suppose that one sign means convergence whereas the other means divergence. $\endgroup$
    – gerrit ♦
    Feb 14 '17 at 10:34
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MFC can be employed to detect frontal structures and possible storms, which can be related with high values of MFC, which means convection of winds with high quantity of moisture...

In a field map, you will be able to identify fronts as structures with high values of MFC. Try to plot along with pressure field for better understanding if you are able to.

Find more info here: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/banacos/mfc-sls.pdf

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    $\begingroup$ Please elaborate your answer a bit more $\endgroup$
    – arkaia
    Feb 14 '17 at 20:39
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    $\begingroup$ @JaimeHernandez - what does negative value of MFC mean and what does positive value MFC mean ? Unless you explain those.... $\endgroup$
    – gansub
    Feb 15 '17 at 11:26
  • $\begingroup$ @JaimeHernandes, this is a good remark. In the publication you cited, the authors, at some point, show that MFC is an approximation for precipitation. But what do you do with the negative values of MFC (divergence)? How can you deal with the negative rain? $\endgroup$
    – ouranos
    Jul 1 '17 at 17:55
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The meteorological application of vertically integrated moisture flux convergence (MFC) is very well explained by Banacos and Schultz (2004), so I will not repeat their words.

But in general words, MFC (only the divergence term, times -1) may be used to estimate precipitation, assuming that local variations of moisture are mainly due to advection and evaporation is nearly null in regions of substantial precipitation and/or saturated air.

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