Anomalous circulation patterns associated with 2011 heavy rainfall over northern Tanzania

Laban Lameck Kebacho ()
Additional contact information
Laban Lameck Kebacho: University of Dar Es Salaam

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2021, vol. 109, issue 3, No 13, 2295-2312

Abstract: Abstract The socio-economic impacts of floods calls for improved understanding of flood drivers. While the large-scale circulation anomalies associated with rainfall anomalies is a well-studied, the interaction of the phases of the Indian Ocean Dipole and the El Niño Southern Oscillation with rainfall anomalies over Tanzania is comparatively less understood. This paper fills this knowledge gap by studying the circulation anomalies associated with heavy rainfall events over northern Tanzania during the 2011 October-December season. A total number of 28 heavy rainfall events were observed, whereby 8, 11, and 9 events are recorded during October, November, and December, respectively. Bukoba is the only region that experienced more heavy rainfall events during each month of the study. Analysis of circulation anomalies reveals that heavy rainfall events are significantly related to moisture flux convergence that was transported through the northeasterly, southeasterly, and westerly pathways. The remarkable active upward motion that is conducive for heavy rainfall events also occurs over northern Tanzania. The moisture flux in October and November was under the influence of the cyclonic circulation over the south-central Indian Ocean and Indian Ocean Dipole. In December, westerly from the Congo basin forest play a significant role in enhancing the moisture flux. The results demonstrate the interplay between Indian Ocean Dipole and westerly in modulating moisture flux over northern Tanzania at a sub-seasonal time scale. The current study offers useful angles of contribution in understanding the mechanism controlling the country’s weather, therefore improving forecasting accuracy.

Keywords: Tanzania; Circulation; Heavy rainfall events; Moisture flux (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-021-04920-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:109:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s11069-021-04920-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-021-04920-5

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().