Co-leaders
Ernest Afiesimama (Nigerian Met. Service, Nigeria)
Sarah Jones (Univ. Karlruhe, Germany)
Dave Parsons (NCAR, US)
Florence Rabier (Meteo-France, France)
Chris Thorncroft (Univ. Albany, SUNY, US)
Zoltan Toth (NCEP, US)
High impact weather and research themes
Working Group 5 is concerned with improving our knowledge and understanding of high impact weather over
the West African continent, and regions impacted by the West African continent. Specific topics include:
- West Africa: Onset and duration of wet and dry spells including monsoon onset; heavy rainfall
events and associated flooding; high aerosol outbreaks.
- Downstream Tropical Atlantic: Tropical cyclogenesis and intensity change
- Extratropics: Extratropical transition of tropical cyclones; Rossby wave trains from Africa.
Operational Activities
Working Group 5 is also concerned with two activities with strong links to operations:
- Tailoring and evaluation of forecast products in tropical regions
Many new forecast products were developed for in-the-field decision making during the summer 2006
observing campaign. These products will be evaluated and developed for future operational forecasting activity.
- Data impact studies
One of the major aims of the AMMA programme is to recommend and ultimately implement the sustained
observing system to support high impact weather prediction in the West African region and regions
affected by it. WG5 is responsible for promoting and coordinating the data impact studies needed to
make these recommendations. In addition WG5 will promote and carry out research concerned with targeting
observations in the tropics using the observations that were made during the AMMA field campaign,
including radiosoundings and dropsondes (especially from the driftsonde system).
Societal Impacts
TDB
Documents
WG5 overview document
Publications
TDB
Important Links