LAUSR

Abstract Westerly Wind Events (WWEs) over the tropical Pacific are characterized by their spatiotemporal diversity and classified into six types based on their different locations and durations. Various types of WWEs exhibit quite different characteristics in terms of their amplitudes. The long events with a 10–30-day duration are stronger than the short events with a 6–10-day duration, and the maximum amplitudes of the Central-Pacific (C) type and Eastern-Pacific (E) type of long events are larger than the Western-Pacific (W) type of long ones. The evolutions of these six types of WWEs are also quite different. The W-type short and long events and the C-type long events show a distinct eastward propagation, whereas the C-type short events and the E-type short and long events have no apparent propagation direction. We demonstrate that such a difference in the eastward propagation of WWEs can be significantly associated with the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The W-type events are more influenced heavily by the MJO, as indicated by their more distinct eastward propagation patterns, than the two other types of WWEs. In addition to the MJO, the convectively coupled Kelvin waves are also associated with the WWEs, especially for the short events.