Category: Responding to Human Health Risks
Project Team: African Great Lakes Weather II
Team Location: Wise County Clerk of Court’s Office – Wise, Virginia
Overshooting top detections and weather variables collected from MERRA over Lake Victoria and the surrounding area during a storm event. Image Credit: African Great Lakes Weather II Team
Annabel White
Jakub Blach
Michael Brooke
Megan Buzanowicz
Katherine Dooley
Rajkishan Rajappan
Ryan Umberger
Mentors/Advisors:
Dr. Kenton Ross (NASA Langley Research Center)
Kristopher Bedka (NASA Langley Research Center – Climate Science Branch)
Dr. DeWayne Cecil (Global Science and Technology Inc., National Centers for Environmental Information)
Robert VanGundy (University of Virginia’s College at Wise)
April Huff (NASA DEVELOP at Wise)
Mike Bender (NASA DEVELOP National Program)
Past/Other Contributors:
Michael Brooke (Center Lead)
William Wilson
Grant Bloomer
Juan Antonio Chacón Castro
Abstract:
The African Great Lakes lie along the East African Rift Valley and play an important role in the economy and culture of the millions of people in the region. Intense storms can develop around the lakes with little warning and create life-threatening hazards to fisherman caught out on the lakes during these events. This project aims to find correlations between climatic indicators and the onset of storms. The results will help the Kenya Meteorological Department to improve the forecasting accuracy of local and regional authorities. For the years 2005 to 2013, the NASA DEVELOP team compared potential storm indicators on days of heightened and average overshooting top (OT) detections. The Hazardous Storm Event Database (HSED), derived from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) sensors present on Meteosat 8 and 9 satellites, contained the OT detection information used in this project. Aqua Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) sensors, along with various Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) products, provided meteorological data for statistical and spatial comparisons.