loading page

The characterization of the variability of the wet season over Central America
  • Joanna Rodgers,
  • Vasubandhu Misra,
  • Chempampadam B. Jayasankar
Joanna Rodgers
Florida State University
Author Profile
Vasubandhu Misra
Florida State University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile
Chempampadam B. Jayasankar
Florida State University
Author Profile

Abstract

Central America exhibits a distinct seasonal cycle of rainfall, which is objectively defined as having an onset date and a demise date of the wet season on the first and the last day of the year when its daily rainfall exceeds and falls below the annual mean rainfall climatology. This is defined at the granularity of the rainfall analysis dataset. Additionally, the methodology diagnoses the onset/demise dates of the wet season from an ensemble of 1000 members per season by perturbing the original timeseries to obtain robust probabilistic estimates. We show that both onset and demise date variations have a bearing on the seasonal length and seasonal rainfall anomaly but impact them independently of each other. We demonstrate that a seasonal outlook based solely on the onset date variations has useful prediction skills that portend for real-time monitoring of the onset date of the wet season.
25 Sep 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
17 Oct 2023Published in ESS Open Archive