Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies

RESEARCH

 

NOAA Strategic Goal 3: Serve Society’s Need for Weather and Water Information

Climate Effects/Controls on Mesoscale Processes

NSSL Project 6 – Investigation of Synoptic and Mesoscale Meteorological Processes Associated with Hazardous Weather: Explaining the Spatial Variability of the Mid-Summer Drought over the Inter-American Seas Region

Douglas (primary – NSSL), Murillo, Mejia, Orozco

Funding Type: CIMMS Task II

Objectives
Map, at high spatial resolution, and explain the variability in rainfall and cloudiness associated with the mid-summer dry season that occurs over parts of the Caribbean Sea and Central America region.

Accomplishments
Satellite data from Internet web sites have been downloaded and processed into monthly means. North American regional reanalysis data are being prepared to stratify by mid-summer drought start and end dates.

This project is ongoing.

Publications
Douglas, M W., J. Mejia, J. Murillo, and R. Orozco, 2007: Spatial structure of cloudiness associated with the mid-summer drought from MODIS and GOES imagery. EOS Trans. AGU, 88(23), Jt. Assem. Suppl., Abstract H51G-04.

Average of 3 years of twice-daily MODIS visible imagery for the region of Costa Rica

Average of 3 years of twice-daily MODIS visible imagery for the region of Costa Rica. Cloudiness information being extracted from the individual images is being used to map cloudiness variations related to the mid-summer drought over Central America.