87th AMS Annual Meeting

Monday, 15 January 2007
The determination and description of surface weather types in central sudan using the principal components analysis and non- hierarchical clustering methods
Exhibit Hall C (Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center)
Khadiga Abdelmola, Atrstotle Univ., Thessaloniki, Greece
Principal components analysis was conducted on 10 years data of surface synoptic observations at Khartoum meteorological station which is located between 15 36'N and longitude 32 33'E in the central Sudan. The synoptic elements such as air temperature and wet temperature, dew point, pressure, relative humidity, wind directions and wind speed, cloud cover, and rainfall were observed 4 times per-day except the rainfall one time a day. The purpose of this paper is to classify the synoptic types in central Sudan from 1994 to 2003 into nine broad types using component scores. These types uniquely described variations in central region climate behavior during the study period, and hint at an ability to identify the important variations in controlling mechanisms. In this case the main important synoptic feature in Sudan is inter-tropical convergence zone (I.T.C.Z).

Supplementary URL: