Date of Award

3-23-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Engineering Physics

First Advisor

Rose Tseng, PhD.

Abstract

Severe wind gusts and thunderstorms have been difficult to forecast in Africa. Traditional convective forecast tools (e.g. Total Totals Index, Lifted Index, K Index (KI) and Convective Available Potential Energy) do not accurately portray potential for thunderstorms in Africa. This research effort used the Gálvez-Davison Index (GDI), a convective index created for the tropics, and assess its applicability to northern Africa. GDI was produced for the Caribbean and Central America, and utilized temperature, moisture, mid-level stability, dry air entrainment and an elevation factor to calculate convective potential. In this research, GDI and KI were calculated using Global Forecast System (GFS) reanalysis data. K-means clustering was used to conduct an error analysis. These error values were then bootstrapped and confidence intervals were calculated using the bias-corrected and accelerated method. Results indicated GDI and KI had similar location error in both the intra-annual and intra-seasonal studies. In comparison with KI, GDI had lower area error values in the intra-annual study and in most convective synoptic cases with 95% confidence.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENP-MS-18-M-078

DTIC Accession Number

AD1056245

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