May 29 - August 2
Developing and Non-Developing African Easterly Waves and their Relationship to Tropical Cyclone Formation
Bo Tan, Mike Douglas, Javier Murillo, and John Mejia
Abstract:
As African (Tropical) Easterly Waves (AEW) form in eastern to central Africa, convective storms propagate across Northern Africa. Tropical cyclone genesis is a tough question; however, under stronger tropical wave circumstances, hurricanes are more likely to develop. During summer of 2006, two field experiments called African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (AMMA) and NASA AMMA gathered valuable tropical upper-air data that is available to further study AEW. The observations permit the distinctions of the stronger AEW to the weaker ones. Meridional wind anomaly plot shows strong signals of AEWs’ propagation. The plot will be analyzed to determine the exact date of trough axis passage. Using the dates, Infrared images will be analyzed to determine the differences of developing and non-developing AEWs. This study confirms some of previous studies’ findings on structures of AEW. This study shows that the stronger meridional wind relates to the Cape Verde Storms. All the lesser meridional wind waves did not develop. Satellite imagery shows that the differences of convective cloud fields are not easily noticeable between developing and non-developing waves.