Articles | Volume 8, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-8-31-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/ascmo-8-31-2022
15 Mar 2022
 | 15 Mar 2022

Spatial heterogeneity in rain-bearing winds, seasonality and rainfall variability in southern Africa's winter rainfall zone

Willem Stefaan Conradie, Piotr Wolski, and Bruce Charles Hewitson

Data sets

Winter Rainfall Zone 2019 station rainfall dataset S. Conradie, B. Hewitson, and P. Wolski https://doi.org/10.25375/uct.16453452.v1

GPCC Climatology Version 2018 at 0.25 degree: Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation Climatology for Every Month and the Total Year from Rain-Gauges built on GTS-based and Historical Data A. Meyer-Christoffer, A. Becker, P. Finger, U. Schneider, and M. Ziese https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2018_025

Dwarsberg weather station (1214 m), event rainfall, 03/2013-09/2019 A. de Buys https://doi.org/10.15493/SAEON.FYNBOS.10000008

Full Data Monthly Version 2018.0 at 0.25 degree: Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation from Rain-Gauges built on GTS-based and Historic Data U. Schneider, A. Becker, P. Finger, A. Meyer-Christoffer, and M. Ziese https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V2018_025

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1979 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Model code and software

Python code to analyse the association between rainfall data and synoptic wind direction S. Conradie, B. Hewitson, and P. Wolski https://doi.org/10.25375/UCT.16546008.V1

Rainfall quality control and gap-filling procedure using Generalised Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) S. Conradie, B. Hewitson, and P. Wolski https://doi.org/10.25375/uct.18856337

xarray: v0.8.0 S. Hoyer, C. Fitzgerald, J. Hamman, akleeman, T. Kluyver, M. Roos, J. J. Helmus, Markel, P. Cable, F. Maussion, A. Miles, T. Kanmae, P. Wolfram, S. Sinclair, B. Bovy, ebrevdo, R. Guedes, R. Abernathey, F. Spencer Hill, N. Richards, A. Lee, N. Koldunov, M. Graham, maciekswat, J. Gerard, I. Babuschkin, C. Deil, E. Welch, and A. Hilboll https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.59499

Short summary
Cape Town is situated in a small but ecologically and climatically highly diverse and vulnerable pocket of South Africa uniquely receiving its rain mostly in winter. We show complex structures in the spatial patterns of rainfall seasonality and year-to-year changes in rainfall within this domain, tied to spatial differences in the rain-bearing winds. This allows us to develop a new spatial subdivision of the region to help future studies distinguish spatially distinct climate change responses.