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Flash flooding in the arid/semiarid southwestern United States is frequently associated with convective rainfall during the North American monsoon. In this study, we examine flood-producing storms in central Arizona based on analyses of dense rain gauge observations and stream gauging records as well as North American Regional Reanalysis fields. Our storm catalog consists of 102 storm events during the period of 1988-2014. Synoptic conditions for flood-producing storms are characterized based on principal component analyses. Four dominant synoptic modes are identified, with the first two modes explaining approximately 50% of the variance of the 500-hPa geopotential height. The transitional synoptic pattern from the North American monsoon regime to midlatitude systems is a critical large-scale feature for extreme rainfall and flooding in central Arizona. Contrasting spatial rainfall organizations and storm environment under the four synoptic modes highlights the role of interactions among synoptic conditions, mesoscale processes, and complex terrains in determining space-time variability of convective activities and flash flood hazards in central Arizona. We characterize structure and evolution properties of flood-producing storms based on storm tracking algorithms and 3D radar reflectivity. Fast-moving storm elements can be important ingredients for flash floods in the arid/semiarid southwestern United States. Contrasting storm properties for cloudburst storms highlight the wide spectrum of convective intensities for extreme rain rates in the arid/semiarid southwestern United States and exhibit comparable vertical structures to their counterparts in the eastern United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The incidence of gastric cardia cancer (GCC) patients has been increasing, while the survival trends of GCC patients over time remains unclear. Thus, the aim of our study was to determine the survival trends of GCC patients over time using a population-based data in the United States., Methods: A total of 9044 surgically resected GCC patients during 1988 to 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were identified. The survival probabilities were calculated by Kaplan-Meier method and the different survival probabilities between groups were examined by log-rank test., Results: The median overall survival time was 27 (interquartile range, 12 to 99) months, and the median disease-specific survival time was 32 (interquartile range, 13 to 320) months for GCC patients. There was a statistically significant increase in median overall survival time (17 to 46 mo; P<0.001) and disease-specific survival time (19 to 67 mo; P<0.001) from 1988 to 1997 to 2008 to 2015. More GCC patients were diagnosed at an early stage in recent years. Meanwhile, adequate lymph nodes examined (eLNs) were obtained in more GCC patients during surgery. Also, the proportion of GCC patients who received chemoradiotherapy increased significantly. Moreover, early diagnosis, adequate eLNs, and chemoradiotherapy were associated with mortality., Conclusions: The survival rates of surgically resected GCC patients had a significant improvement from 1988 to 1997 to 2008 to 2015 in the United States, which might relate to the early discovery of GCC, greater utilization of adequate eLNs, and chemoradiotherapy.