  Emerging active regions are associated with convective flows on the spatial
scale and lifetimes of supergranules. To understand how these flows are
involved in the formation of active regions, we aim to identify where active
regions emerge in the supergranulation flow pattern. We computed
supergranulation scale flow maps at the surface for all active regions in the
Solar Dynamics Observatory Helioseismic Emerging Active Region Survey. We
classified each of the active regions into four bins, based on the amplitude of
their average surface flow divergence at emergence. We then averaged the flow
divergence over the active regions in each bin as a function of time. We also
considered a corresponding set of control regions. We found that, on average,
the flow divergence increases during the day prior to emergence at a rate
independent of the amount of flux that emerges. By subtracting the averaged
flow divergence of the control regions, we found that active region emergence
is associated with a remaining converging flow at 0.5-1 days prior to
emergence. This remnant flow, $\Delta \, \mathrm{div} \, \mathbf{v_h} = (-4.9
\pm 1.7) \times 10^{-6}$ 1/s, corresponds to a flow speed of 10-20 m/s (an
order of magnitude less than supergranulation flows) out to a radius of about
10 Mm. We show that these observational results are qualitatively supported by
simulations of a small bipole emerging through the near-surface convective
layers of the Sun. The question remains whether these flows are driving the
emergence, or are caused by the emergence.
