Climatology of precipitation and clouds over South_Africa
South Africa


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 151770 snapshots of precipitation features with size > 80 km^2 have been collected over South_Africa , where 9383 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 151770 360 1247 6.4 1.5 0.72
    DJF 61044 386 1400 6.5 1.9 0.87
    MAM 37695 352 1163 6.1 1.5 0.61
    JJA 14515 253 638 6.3 0.6 0.18
    SON 38516 368 1314 6.5 1.3 0.78

  • Extreme rainy events
  • In all 151770 precipitation features, top 1% ( volumetric rain > 25225 mm/hr*km^2) rainy features contribute 56 % of total rainfall. Top 100 rainiest events observed by TRMM during 1998-2013 over South_Africa 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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