Emmanuel, K. A. Atmospheric Convection (Oxford Univ. Press, 1994).
Froidevaux, P., Schlemmer, L., Schmidli, J., Langhans, W. & Schär, C. Influence of the background wind on the local soil moisture–precipitation feedback. J. Atmos. Sci. 71, 782–799 (2014).
Taylor, C. M. et al. Frequency of Sahelian storm initiation enhanced over mesoscale soil-moisture patterns. Nat. Geosci 4, 430–433 (2011).
Houze, R. A. Jr. in International Geophysics Vol. 104 (ed. Houze, R. A. Jr.) 187–236 (Academic Press, 2014).
Schumacher, R. S. & Rasmussen, K. L. The formation, character and changing nature of mesoscale convective systems. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 1, 300–314 (2020).
World Meteorological Organization (WMO). WMO Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970–2019). WMO-No. 1267. WMO https://wmo.int/publication-series/wmo-atlas-of-mortality-and-economic-losses-from-weather-climate-and-water-extremes-1970-2019 (2021).
Seneviratne, S. I. et al. in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. P. et al.) 1513–1766 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2023).
Lock, N. A. & Houston, A. L. Empirical examination of the factors regulating thunderstorm initiation. Mon. Weather Rev. 142, 240–258 (2014).
Birch, C. E., Marsham, J. H., Parker, D. J. & Taylor, C. M. The scale dependence and structure of convergence fields preceding the initiation of deep convection. Geophys. Res. Lett. 41, 4769–4776 (2014).
Fankhauser, J. C., Crook, N. A., Tuttle, J., Miller, L. J. & Wade, C. G. Initiation of deep convection along boundary layer convergence lines in a semitropical environment. Mon. Weather Rev. 123, 291–314 (1995).
Sakaeda, N. & Torri, G. The observed effects of cold pools on convection triggering and organization during DYNAMO/AMIE. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 128, e2023JD038635 (2023).
Pielke, R. A. Influence of the spatial distribution of vegetation and soils on the prediction of cumulus convective rainfall. Rev. Geophys. 39, 151–177 (2001).
Peters, J. M. et al. The influence of shear on deep convection initiation. Part I: theory. J. Atmos. Sci. 79, 1669–1690 (2022).
LeBel, L. J. & Markowski, P. M. An analysis of the impact of vertical wind shear on convection initiation using large-eddy simulations: importance of wake entrainment. Mon. Weather Rev. 151, 1667–1688 (2023).
Mulholland, J. P., Peters, J. M. & Morrison, H. How does vertical wind shear influence entrainment in squall lines? J. Atmos. Sci. 78, 1931–1946 (2021).
Alfaro, D. A. Low-tropospheric shear in the structure of squall lines: impacts on latent heating under layer-lifting ascent. J. Atmos. Sci. 74, 229–248 (2017).
Marion, G. R. & Trapp, R. J. The dynamical coupling of convective updrafts, downdrafts, and cold pools in simulated supercell thunderstorms. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 124, 664–683 (2019).
Laing, A. G. & Fritsch, J. M. The large-scale environments of the global populations of mesoscale convective complexes. Mon. Weather Rev. 128, 2756–2776 (2000).
Findell, K. L. & Eltahir, E. A. B. Atmospheric controls on soil moisture–boundary layer interactions. Part I: framework development. J. Hydrometeorol. 4, 552–569 (2003).
Taylor, C. M. Detecting soil moisture impacts on convective initiation in Europe. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 4631–4638 (2015).
Barton, E. J., Taylor, C. M., Klein, C., Harris, P. P. & Meng, X. Observed soil moisture impact on strong convection over mountainous Tibetan Plateau. J. Hydrometeorol. 22, 561–572 (2021).
Chug, D., Dominguez, F., Taylor, C. M., Klein, C. & Nesbitt, S. W. Dry-to-wet soil gradients enhance convection and rainfall over subtropical South America. J. Hydrometeorol. 24, 1563–1581 (2023).
Gaal, R. & Kinter, J. L. III Soil moisture influence on the incidence of summer mesoscale convective systems in the U.S. Great Plains. Mon. Weather Rev. 149, 3981–3994 (2021).
Ookouchi, Y., Segal, M., Kessler, R. C. & Pielke, R. A. Evaluation of soil moisture effects on the generation and modification of mesoscale circulations. Mon. Weather Rev. 112, 2281–2292 (1984).
Segal, M. & Arritt, R. W. Nonclassical mesoscale circulations caused by surface sensible heat-flux gradients. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 73, 1593–1604 (1992).
Rieck, M., Hohenegger, C. & van Heerwaarden, C. C. The influence of land surface heterogeneities on cloud size development. Mon. Weather Rev. 142, 3830–3846 (2014).
Garcia-Carreras, L., Parker, D. J., Taylor, C. M., Reeves, C. E. & Murphy, J. G. Impact of mesoscale vegetation heterogeneities on the dynamical and thermodynamic properties of the planetary boundary layer. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 115, D03102 (2010).
Taylor, C. M., de Jeu, R. A. M., Guichard, F., Harris, P. P. & Dorigo, W. A. Afternoon rain more likely over drier soils. Nature 489, 423–426 (2012).
Guillod, B. P., Orlowsky, B., Miralles, D. G., Teuling, A. J. & Seneviratne, S. I. Reconciling spatial and temporal soil moisture effects on afternoon rainfall. Nat. Commun. 6, 6443 (2015).
Lee, J. & Hohenegger, C. Weaker land–atmosphere coupling in global storm-resolving simulation. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 121, e2314265121 (2024).
Koster, R. D. et al. Regions of strong coupling between soil moisture and precipitation. Science 305, 1138–1140 (2004).
Dirmeyer, P. A. The terrestrial segment of soil moisture–climate coupling. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L16702 (2011).
Imamovic, A., Schlemmer, L. & Schär, C. Collective impacts of orography and soil moisture on the soil moisture-precipitation feedback. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 11,682–11,691 (2017).
Hersbach, H. et al. The ERA5 global reanalysis. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 146, 1999–2049 (2020).
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Global Precipitation Measurements (GPM) Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals (IMERG) L3 half hourly 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree v07. CEDA Archive https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/6ae3dc8d92444b2bb954173fe98559b6 (2024).
Tegtmeier, S. et al. Temperature and tropopause characteristics from reanalyses data in the tropical tropopause layer. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 20, 753–770 (2020).
Zipser, E. J., Liu, C., Cecil, D. J., Nesbitt, S. W. & Yorty, D. P. Where are the most intense thunderstorms on Earth? Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 87, 1057–1071 (2006).
Klein, C., Nkrumah, F., Taylor, C. M. & Adefisan, E. A. Seasonality and trends of drivers of mesoscale convective systems in southern West Africa. J. Clim. 34, 71–87 (2021).
Taylor, C. M., Klein, C. & Harris, B. L. Multiday soil moisture persistence and atmospheric predictability resulting from Sahelian mesoscale convective systems. Geophys. Res. Lett. 51, e2024GL109709 (2024).
Peters, J. M. et al. The influence of shear on deep convection initiation. Part II: simulations. J. Atmos. Sci. 79, 1691–1711 (2022).
Marquis, J. N., Varble, A. C., Robinson, P., Nelson, T. C. & Friedrich, K. Low-level mesoscale and cloud-scale interactions promoting deep convection initiation. Mon. Weather Rev. 149, 2473–2495 (2021).
Morrison, H., Peters, J. M., Chandrakar, K. K. & Sherwood, S. C. Influences of environmental relative humidity and horizontal scale of subcloud ascent on deep convective initiation. J. Atmos. Sci. 79, 337–359 (2022).
Nelson, T. C., Marquis, J., Peters, J. M. & Friedrich, K. Environmental controls on simulated deep moist convection initiation occurring during RELAMPAGO-CACTI. J. Atmos. Sci. 79, 1941–1964 (2022).
Findell, K. L. & Eltahir, E. A. B. Atmospheric controls on soil moisture-boundary layer interactions: three-dimensional wind effects. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 108, 8385 (2003).
Taylor, C. M. et al. “Late-stage” deforestation enhances storm trends in coastal West Africa. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2109285119 (2022).
Knox, R., Bisht, G., Wang, J. & Bras, R. Precipitation variability over the forest-to-nonforest transition in southwestern Amazonia. J. Clim. 24, 2368–2377 (2011).
Roehrig, R., Bouniol, D., Guichard, F., Hourdin, F. & Redelsperger, J.-L. The present and future of the West African monsoon: a process-oriented assessment of CMIP5 simulations along the AMMA transect. J. Clim. 26, 6471–6505 (2013).
Spät, D., Biasutti, M., Schuhbauer, D. & Voigt, A. Autocorrelation—a simple diagnostic for tropical precipitation variability in global kilometer-scale climate models. Geophys. Res. Lett. 51, e2024GL108856 (2024).
Baidu, M., Schwendike, J., Marsham, J. H. & Bain, C. Effects of vertical wind shear on intensities of mesoscale convective systems over West and Central Africa. Atmos. Sci. Lett. 23, e1094 (2022).
Vogel, P., Knippertz, P., Fink, A. H., Schlueter, A. & Gneiting, T. Skill of global raw and postprocessed ensemble predictions of rainfall in the tropics. Weather Forecast. 35, 2367–2385 (2020).
H SAF. Product Validation Report (PVR) Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Near Real Time 6.25 km sampling (H122), 16 pp. H SAF https://hsaf.meteoam.it/Products/Detail?prod=H122 (2024).
Wagner, W., Noll, J., Borgeaud, M. & Rott, H. Monitoring soil moisture over the Canadian Prairies with the ERS scatterometer. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 37, 206–216 (1999).
Hahn, S., Reimer, C., Vreugdenhil, M., Melzer, T. & Wagner, W. Dynamic characterization of the incidence angle dependence of backscatter using Metop ASCAT. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens. 10, 2348–2359 (2017).
Hahn, S., Wagner, W., Steele-Dunne, S. C., Vreugdenhil, M. & Melzer, T. Improving ASCAT soil moisture retrievals with an enhanced spatially variable vegetation parameterization. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 59, 8241–8256 (2021).
Dorigo, W. et al. ESA CCI Soil Moisture for improved Earth system understanding: state-of-the art and future directions. Remote Sens. Environ. 203, 185–215 (2017).
Gallego-Elvira, B. et al. Global observational diagnosis of soil moisture control on the land surface energy balance. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 2623–2631 (2016).
Sobrino, J. A. & Romaguera, M. Land surface temperature retrieval from MSG1-SEVIRI data. Remote Sens. Environ. 92, 247–254 (2004).
Talib, J. et al. The sensitivity of the West African monsoon circulation to intraseasonal soil moisture feedbacks. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 148, 1709–1730 (2022).
NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. ETOPO1 1 Arc-Minute Global Relief Model. NOAA https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ngdc.mgg.dem:316 (2009).
Wagner, W. et al. Global scale mapping of subsurface scattering signals impacting ASCAT soil moisture retrievals. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 62, 4509520 (2024).
Hunter, J. D. Matplotlib: a 2D graphics environment. Comput. Sci. Eng. 9, 90–95 (2007).
Taylor, C. code accompanying publication “Wind shear enhances soil moisture influence on rapid thunderstorm growth”. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17871500 (2025).
Moesinger, L. et al. The global long-term microwave Vegetation Optical Depth Climate Archive (VODCA). Earth Syst. Sci. Data 12, 177–196 (2020).

