Moist Potential Vorticity Vector for Diagnosis of Heavy Rainfall Events in Tanzania - Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection

GEP > Vol.4 No.9, September 2016

Moist Potential Vorticity Vector for Diagnosis of Heavy Rainfall Events in Tanzania ()

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Download as PDF (Size: 21277KB) PP. 128-145

DOI: 10.4236/gep.2016.49010 1,880 Downloads 3,124 Views Citations

Author(s)

Philbert Modest Luhunga^1,2*, George Djolov¹, Edmund Mutayoba³

Affiliation(s)

¹Department of Geography, Geo-Informatics and Meteorology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
²Research Section, Tanzania Meteorological Agency, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
³Department of Built Environmental Engineering, Mbeya University of Science and Technology, Mbeya, Tanzania.

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we modify the convective vorticity vector (CVV) defined as a cross product of absolute vorticity and gradient of equivalent potential temperature to moist potential vorticity vector (MPVV) defined as a cross product of absolute vorticity (

) and the gradient of the moist-air entropy potential temperature (

). The patterns of (MPVV) are compared with the patterns of heavy rainfall events that occurred over different regions in Tanzania on 20^th to 22^nd December, 2011 and on 5^th to 8^th May, 2015. Moreover, the article aimed at assessing the relative contributions of the magnitude, horizontal and vertical components of (MPVV) detecting on the observed patterns of rainfall events. Dynamic and thermodynamic variables: wind speed, temperature, atmospheric pressure and relative humidity from numerical output generated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model running at Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) were used to compute MPVV. It is found that MPVV provide accurate tracking of locations received heavy rainfall, suggesting its potential use as a dynamic tracer for heavy rainfall events in Tanzania. Finally it is found that the first and second components of MPVV contribute almost equally in tracing locations received heavy rainfall events. The magnitude of MPVV described the locations received heavy rainfall events better than the components.

KEYWORDS

Moist Potential Vorticity Vector, Moist-Air Entropic Potential Temperature, Heavy Rainfall Events

Share and Cite:

Luhunga, P. , Djolov, G. and Mutayoba, E. (2016) Moist Potential Vorticity Vector for Diagnosis of Heavy Rainfall Events in Tanzania. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 4, 128-145. doi: 10.4236/gep.2016.49010.

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