Climatology of precipitation and clouds over Western_Sahel_Semi_Desert
Western Sahel Semi Desert


General info
Precipitation
System properties
Cloud
Seasonal variation
Diurnal variation
Vertical Structure
Extreme events
Time series
  • Mean properties of precipitation system

  • During 1998-2013, total 91581 snapshots of precipitation features with size > 80 km^2 have been collected over Western_Sahel_Semi_Desert , where 4219 of them have lightning flashes inside. Some mean properties of these features are listed below:
    samples (#) mean size (km^2) mean volumetric rain (mm/hr*km^2) mean echo top (km) mean 30 dBZ ehco top (km)mean flash count (#)
    All 91581 384 1476 6.8 1.4 0.80
    DJF 6336 61 79 7.4 0.3 0.02
    MAM 15991 225 652 7.1 1.5 0.62
    JJA 45823 488 1934 6.6 1.5 1.05
    SON 23431 378 1518 6.9 1.5 0.64

  • Extreme rainy events
  • In all 91581 precipitation features, top 1% ( volumetric rain > 29171 mm/hr*km^2) rainy features contribute 70 % of total rainfall. Top 100 rainiest events observed by TRMM during 1998-2013 over Western_Sahel_Semi_Desert are listed here . Following figure shows the location of the precipitation feautres categorized by the volumetric rainfall.


  • Extreme intense events
  • Some of the precipitation sytems are much intense with large hails and many lightning than others (see the lists of top lightning storms. Following figure shows the location of the precipitation feautres categorized by the lightning rate and 30 dBZ echo top.


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