|
|
NAMMA Senegal Rain Gauge Network Table of Contents
The NAMMA Senegal Rain Gauge Network consists of a network of high resolution tipping bucket rain gauges (38), located in various places throughout Senegal, West Africa. This network was used to derive basic information on the precipitation yields from the principal mesoscale convective systems as they traversed from continental to marine environments. The "Rain Gauge Network" is made up of a large-scale network and a dense-scale network. Large-Scale Rain Gauge Network The large-scale rain gauge network consists of 18 gauge sites which were deployed in June, 2005, to provide area and range dependent coverage for NPOL. Two of these gauges are co-located at the NPOL site to provide coincident measurements with each other and Larry Bliven’s Rain Imaging System (RIS). These 18 sites were used to provide ground verification data for evaluation of satellite and radar rainfall estimates. Distances between rain gauges and the NPOL site range between about 5 km and 75 km. Dense-Scale Rain Gauge Network The dense-scale network consists of 20 rain gauge sites which were deployed in August, 2006, and are centered on the village of Diaganiao. The rain gauges correspond to village locations, and range from 200 m to 12 Km from each other. Data from this network were used to examine small-scale rainfall variability of the region and provide error estimates for the NPOL radar. The rain gauge network in Senegal will be left in place for longer term measurements that will be available for students and researchers in Senegal/US. Details about deployed rain gauges, site maps, and photos of the each site are provided in the document NAMMA_Raingauge_network.pdf These data files were generated during support of the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) campaign, a field research investigation sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This mission was based in the Cape Verde Islands, 350 miles off the coast of Senegal in west Africa. Commencing in August 2006, NASA scientists employed surface observation networks and aircraft to characterize the evolution and structure of African Easterly Waves (AEWs) and Mesoscale Convective Systems over continental western Africa, and their associated impacts on regional water and energy budgets. For more information about the NAMMA Campaign, go to the NAMMA web site: http://namma.nsstc.nasa.gov/ The rain gauges collected one-minute accumulation data. An example of the rain gauge files found in this dataset is listed below:
There is one file per Rain Gauge Site. These one-minute Accumulation Rain Gauge data files are in ASCII text format. There are 7 columns of data in each of the minute accumulation files. The first three columns contain the date, and the fourth and fifth contain the time. Column six contains the minute accumulation in mm, and the last column contains the data quality flag (0={good data record} and -1={bad data record}). The data are arranged in the following columns:
This file content information is also provided in the PI supplied document, README_gauge The data Principal Investigators is:
To order these data or for further information, please contact:
|