Seasonal Forecasts of East African Rainfall

This project will improve understanding of East African droughts and heavy rainfall events, evaluate state-of-the-art seasonal weather forecasts and understand sources of forecast error, enabling improved predictions for a region that is extremely vulnerable to variability in rainfall.
There are a number of ways the project could evolve, according to the particular research interests of the student. This will include:
- An evaluation of the GloSea seasonal forecast system over East Africa using satellite-based observations of precipitation and cloud.
- Focus on rainfall extremes, i.e. floods and drought. An assessment of the ability of the seasonal forecast system to predict the drought in 2011 and the heavy rainfall events in 2014 and 2015. Do any of the ensemble members predict these events? More generally, how extreme can anomalies in rainfall be in the seasonal forecasts and is there evidence that the forecasts can predict unprecedented events?
- Comparison of the seasonal forecast system with more traditional statistical forecast methods (e.g. Mutai et al. 1998). What is the added value of the GloSea forecasting system?
- Run additional model case studies or sensitivity tests to better understand key rainfall-producing processes.