Climatology of precipitation and clouds over Somalia
Somalia


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 42579 snapshots of precipitation features with size > 80 km^2 have been collected over Somalia , where 468 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 42579 166 506 4.7 1.5 0.06
    DJF 4574 140 434 5.7 1.7 0.02
    MAM 13727 193 610 5.3 1.9 0.14
    JJA 10331 89 205 3.3 0.7 0.00
    SON 13947 206 652 4.8 1.7 0.03

  • Extreme rainy events
  • In all 42579 precipitation features, top 1% ( volumetric rain > 8331 mm/hr*km^2) rainy features contribute 45 % of total rainfall. Top 100 rainiest events observed by TRMM during 1998-2013 over Somalia 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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