15 JUNE 2003 NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE 2105

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

Prediction of East African Seasonal Rainfall Using Simplex Canonical

Correlation Analysis
HENRY K. NTALE,* THIAN YEW GAN, AND DAVISON MWALE
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

11 September 2001 and 12 December 2002

ABSTRACT
A linear statistical model, canonical correlation analysis (CCA), was driven by the NelderMead simplex
optimization algorithm (called CCA-NMS) to predict the standardized seasonal rainfall totals of East Africa at
3-month lead time using SLP and SST anomaly fields of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans combined together by
24 simplex optimized weights, and then reduced by the principal component analysis. Applying the optimized
weights to the predictor fields produced better MarchAprilMay (MAM) and SeptemberOctoberNovember
(SON) seasonal rain forecasts than a direct application of the same, unweighted predictor fields to CCA at both
calibration and validation stages. Northeastern Tanzania and south-central Kenya had the best SON prediction
results with both validation correlation and HanssenKuipers skill scores exceeding 10.3. The MAM season
was better predicted in the western parts of East Africa. The CCA correlation maps showed that low SON rainfall
in East Africa is associated with cold SSTs off the Somali coast and the Benguela (Angola) coast, and low
MAM rainfall is associated with a buildup of low SSTs in the Indian Ocean adjacent to East Africa and the
Gulf of Guinea.

1. Introduction ticipating countries and numerical weather prediction

The rainfall in East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, and Tan-
zania) exhibits great spatial and temporal variability
(Ogallo 1989) partly due to the complex topography,
the existence of large inland lakes such as Lake Victoria,
the Indian Ocean in the east, and the seasonal migration
of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). These
complexities produce diverse climates ranging from hu-
mid tropical to arid in East Africa where serious me-
teorological droughts or low rainfall have been a con-
stant threat (Ntale 2001). Trewartha (1981) attributed
this rainfall deficiency to the divergent characteristics
and modest thickness of monsoon winds, strong merid-
ian winds that limit the advection of sea moisture, and
a stable stratification of air with a marked decline in
moisture content.
The Drought Monitoring Center in Nairobi (DMNC)
acquires near-real-time meteorological data from par-
* Current affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, Makerere
University, Kampala, Uganda.
Corresponding author address: Dr. Thian Yew Gan, School of
Mining and Petroleum Energy, 220 Civil Electrical Engineering
Bldg., University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6B 2G7, Canada.
E-mail: tgan@civil.ualberta.ca
data from the Meteorological Data Distributed (MDD)
systems on a daily basis. Every month, conditions on
El NinoSouthern Oscillation (ENSO), sea surface tem-
perature (SST), and other anomalies are obtained from
the Climate Prediction Center (Washington, D.C.) and
the National Climate Centre (Melbourne, Australia).
The MDD products are used to predict rainfall patterns
in the following 10 days while the seasonal forecast is
formulated on the basis of ENSO, SST, and other in-
dices. The meteorological departments of the regions
participating countries then review the products from
DMNC and at times adjust them according to some
known local relationships; for example, the Uganda me-
teorological department enhances the DMNC seasonal
products. There have been past studies teleconnecting
climatic signals such as SST with East African rainfall
(e.g., Nicholson and Kim 1997). Even though climate
dynamics are predominantly nonlinear, linear models
such as the canonical correlation analysis (CCA) are
usually preferred over nonlinear models partly because
they are relatively easy to apply, for example, Shabbar
and Barnston (1996). Although CCA is considered ac-
curate when compared with other statistical methods
such as the Markov models and empirical orthogonal
function (EOF) extrapolation, room for improvement
still exists in the algorithm (e.g., Shen et al. 2001)

q 2003 American Meteorological Society

2106 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
FIG. 1. Map of East Africa showing the rainfall grids.
2. Research objectives
To achieve the objectives of examining how East Af-
rican rainfall teleconnects to large-scale climatic signals,
and predicting its seasonal rainfall at one or more sea-
sonal lead times with good prediction skill, we propose
using a CCA model based on predictor fields combined
by weights optimally estimated via a direct search al-
gorithm called simplex (Nelder and Mead 1965; here-
after referred to as NMS). Rather than using only one
climatic signal as in the past to improve the forecast
skill of CCA, at the calibration stage NMS systemati-
cally optimizes some weights to combine SST and sea
level pressure (SLP) of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans
as the optimum predictor fields to CCA. Further, we
classified East Africa into six homogenous rainfall zones
(Ntale 2001). This contrasts with Ogallo (1989) and
Basalirwa (1995) who divided East Africa into over 20
zones, which are too many for our purpose.
3. Rainfall climate of East Africa
The 190097 East African monthly precipitation data
we used was gridded at 2.58 latitude by 3.758 longitude
resolution (Hulme 1994; see our Fig. 1). The East Af-
rican Meteorological Department (1963) generalized its
rainfall distribution patterns into four seasons. During
the winter season [DecemberJanuaryFebruary (DJF)],
the ITCZ is far to the south outside the East African
region and any rainfall in Uganda and Kenya are as-
sociated with regional features. Spring [MarchApril
May (MAM)] or the long rains is the main rainy size n p . For an n p dimensional space, one can perceive
VOLUME 16
FIG. 2. Optimized SST (first number) and SLP (second number)
weights obtained by NMS for the 190086 calibration data (44-yr
moving window) that comprises the previous 6 months of SST and
SLP fields for SON prediction.
season throughout Uganda and Kenya due to the pres-
ence of the moist southeast monsoons from the Indian
Ocean converging into the ITCZ. Summer [JuneJuly
August (JJA)] is relatively dry except in northern Ugan-
da where there is influx of the moist westerly Congo
air mass (Basalirwa 1995). Autumn [SeptemberOcto-
berNovember (SON)], or the short rains, is asso-
ciated with the convergence into the ITCZ of the north-
east monsoons controlled by subtropical anticyclones
over the Azores and Arabian Peninsula. We focus on
MAM and SON seasons that together contribute more
than 70% of the annual rainfall in many parts of East
Africa. We chose the 58 3 58 SST (18562000) and 58
3 58 SLP [18712000; the global mean sea level pres-
sure dataset (GMSLP2.1); Basnett and Parker 1997] grid
data in selected zones in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans
as the predictor fields and transformed them as anom-
alies with respect to the 196190 base period. We ex-
cluded grid points with more than 20% of missing data.
4. Research methodology
CCA was calibrated by NMS, which iteratively search-
es for optimum weights to combine predictor fields (SST
and SLP) to maximize its skill for predicting the seasonal
rainfall of East Africa at the 3-month lead time. The
predictor field was divided into 13 zones (Fig. 2) whose
SLP and SST anomalies were weighted with separate
weights, so that the parameter space is of size 24, 13 for
SST, and 11 for SLP. Two zones had insufficient SLP
data and were excluded from the analysis, for example,
zones with missing SLP weights in Fig. 2.
NMS is executed as follows: we first assign one set
of n p (524 in this case) initial weights to the SST and
SLP grid data in the 24 zones, and then NMS uses these
weights to expand to (n p 1 1) sets of weights, each of
15 JUNE 2003 NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE
that NMS generates a geometric figure of (n p 1 1) sides.
From here NMS 1) assigns one of the (n p 1 1) sets of
weights to the predictor fields (section 4a); 2) truncates
the weighted, linearly combined predictor fields by the
unrotated principal component analysis (PCA); 3) inputs
the retained principal components (PCs) into CCA to
predict precipitation (xpred ) for the n grids (Fig. 1); and
4) computes a mean-square error objective function
(OF) [Eq. (1)] based on the correlation ( r ) between xpred
and observed precipitation (xobs ), their means (m), and
standard deviations (s):
O [r 2 1r 2 ss 2 2 1m
OF 5 2
n
i51
2 pred
obs
2
pred2 mobs
sobs 2
2
] .
On the basis of the OF computed for each set of weights,
NMS strategically searches for other sets of weights in
the parameter space to replace weights having the worst
OF through three operations: reflections, expansions,
and contractions. If a reflection about the centroid of
the (n p 1 1) sides results in improvement in the OF, then
an expansion in the same direction to search for even better
weights is attempted; otherwise, a contraction is used to
search for better weights. Procedures 13 are repeated
thousands of times until the OF is minimized, which is
equivalent to maximizing the CCA forecast skill at the
calibration stage. [Details about NMS are available from
Web sites such as www.statsci.org, www.research.ibm.
com, or Numerical Recipes by Press et al. (1988)]. For
diagnostic purposes, we also used the calibrated CCA
to analyze a composite dataset consisting of the driest
(lowest 10%) SON rain seasons in the 190097 East
African record.
a. Predictor field (SLP 1 SST) setup
The predictor field was divided into 13 zones (boxes
shown in Fig. 2) whose SLP and SST anomalies were
weighted with separate weights, such that 13 was for
SST and 11 for SLP, giving a parameter space of size
24. Two zones (boxes in Fig. 2 only with one weight
each) that are poorly sampled with insufficient SLP data
were excluded. The predictor fields (SST and SLP) have
different units that could impact the nature of PCA ex-
tracted for CCA. If predictor fields have the same units,
of relatively uniform sampling density and quality, then
they should be weighted equally. However, our predictor
fields have different units and nonuniform sampling
density. The tedious search for optimal weights (Fig. 2)
by NMS involves massive computations since each it-
eration means a complete simulation run for CCA. The
SST and SLP zones assigned with larger weights by
NMS probably contribute more to the variability of the
several PCA used in CCA. Shabbar and Barnston (1996)
and Hwang et al. (2001) sought to account for this by
subjectively apportioning heavier weights to those pre-
dictor fields that they conjectured to be more important
to CCA. As far as we know, this is the first attempt to
2107
systematically search for optimal predictor weights in
CCA applications.
In the first CCA model run, a 44-yr moving window
was used while in the second run, a 60-yr moving win-
dow was used. For example, the CCA model run using
a 44-yr moving window proceeded as follows: the MAM
and JJA SST and SLP weighted data for 190043 was
used to predict the 1943 SON rainfall of East Africa,
then sliding the window by 1 yr, the 190144 MAM
and JJA predictors were used to predict the 1944 SON
rainfall, and so on until 194386 MAM and JJA pre-
dictor data was used to predict the 1986 SON rainfall.
(1) The calibrated CCA (e.g., 24 optimized weights) was
also validated with data independent of the calibration
experience, for example, 198797. A moving window
provides the flexibility of choosing a data size and a
period desired. We used two previous seasons (say
MAM and JJA) that account for some temporal evo-
lution of the teleconnection taking place in the last 6
months to predict a given season (say SON) rainfall at
one-season lead time (Ogallo 1989). The total dimen-
sion of the predictor matrix (p) was 554 or (144 SST
1 133 SLP) grid points 3 two seasons, while that of
the predictant (q) was 21.
b. Canonical correlation analysis and principal
component analysis
On the basis of the intercorrelation between two mul-
tivariate datasets (predictor x and predictand y), canon-
ical vectors, and the linear projection of one dataset to
the dimensional space of another, CCA uses x to predict
y in a least squares sense. Readers interested in the
details of CCA can refer to Glahn (1968) and Barnett
and Preisendorfer (1987). To reduce the size of input
data and to filter out data noise, we retain only a limited
number of dominant EOF or PCA modes as input to
CCA. In our CCAPCA system, only unrotated PCA
are used because they have the ability to extract maximal
variance from the dataset. Further, their spatial, temporal
orthogonality and their pattern are insensitive to the
number of PCs retained.
5. Results and discussion
When a moving window of 60 yr was used to calibrate
CCA, a total of 7 predictand and 11 predictor PCs were
retained (Fig. 3). The scree plot (Fig. 3c) shows that
more than 30 eigenvalues .1 but the inflection point
occurs at around the sixth eigenvalue and only the first
11 PCs were chosen to represent the combined predictor
field. While the variance extracted by the predictand
PCs remains relatively steady to 1997, that extracted by
the predictor PCs monotonically increased during the
1980s but leveled off in the 1990s. The 11 predictand
PCs explained about 87% of the rainfall variance (Fig.
3b) while the 11 predictor PCs explained about 63% of
the combined SLP and SST variance (Fig. 3d).
2108 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 16

FIG. 3. (a) The eigenvalues arranged in descending order (scree plot) for the MAM rainfall, (b) the temporal
change of % variance extracted by 5 and 7 PCs with respect to the location of the 60-yr moving window, (c) the
eigenvalues for the combined predictor field composed of the previous SON and DJF SST and SLP anomalies, and
(d) temporal change of % variance extracted by 11 and 15 PCs for predictor fields.

The optimal weights for the predictor fields obtained
by NMS were generally close to unity (0.981.01) ex-
cept that the SST weight of SON in the northeastern
sectors of the Indian Ocean was 1.23 (Fig. 2). The same
happened for MAM except for the SLP weight around
the southeastern Indian Ocean of 0.65 and a bigger
weight (1.11) for the Atlantic Ocean (figure not shown),
which likely suggests that the MAM rainfall is telecon-
nected to the Gulf of Guinea (Trewartha 1981; Okoola
1999). The canonical roots obtained from the model
were generally modest, with the first root averaging be-
tween 0.7 and 0.9 for SON (Fig. 4). Since canonical
roots change in magnitude as the moving window width
changes, it means that the predictandpredictor rela-
tionship changes with time.
rainfall is grouped into categories such as dry, near
normal, and wet. Tercile percentages of below 33%,
33%66%, and above 66% may be used to define the
categories in a square contingency table (Table 1). Here
H 2 Ec
HK 5 , (2)
T 2 Em
where H is the total number of correct forecasts, T is
the total number of forecasts obtainable with a perfect
forecast model, E c is the number of correct hits expected
by chance, and E m is the marginal number of correct
(observation) hits expected by chance. For a K 3 K
contingency table, the HK score may be expressed in
terms of probabilities as
O p(obs , pre ) 2 O p(obs )p(pre )
K K

i i i i

HK 5
i51 i51

1 2 O [p(obs )]
a. Predictive skill of CCA K , (3)
2
The predictive skill of CCA was assessed at both the j

calibration and validation stages using correlation ( r ),

j51

root-mean-square error (rmse), and the HanssenKui- where obs i and pre i are the ith observed and predicted
pers (HK) skill score (Hanssen and Kuipers 1965). To values. For example, in Table 1 the probability of the
compute the HK skill score, the predicted and observed correct forecasts p(obs i , pre i ) is 23/43. The HK score
15 JUNE 2003 NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE
FIG. 4. Variations of the first and second canonical roots for the SON prediction experiments using (a) a 60-yr
moving window and (b) a 44-yr moving window.
values range from 21 to 11 with the latter correspond-
ing to a perfect score. According to Eq. (3), both random
and constant forecasts receive the same zero score.
Only results of 21 of the 31 grids that fall within the
three East African countries (Fig. 1) are retained for
discussion (Table 2). To ensure credibility of the cali-
brated CCA, the same 24 weights optimized by NMS
at the 194486 calibration stage were applied to CCA
at the 198797 validation stage. Using these weights
derived by NMS at the calibration stage predominantly
improves the predictions at both calibration and vali-
dation stages (Table 2). In particular, zone 5, which
comprises northeastern Tanzania and south-central Ken-
ya (grids 11, 12, 15, and 19 in Fig. 1) shows higher HK
scores, r, and lower rmse. For a model to have useful
predictive skill it should have positive HK scores and
the rmse should generally be of about one standard de-
viation. Zones 3 and 4 perform generally well with pos-
itive HK scores. For the most part zone 6 does not
perform well at the validation stage, as some r are less
than or equal to zero. It seems that CCA driven by
predictor fields not combined with optimized weights
has little prognostic value in East African rainfall.
Figure 5 shows the correlation maps for the validation
stage of SON and MAM. The MAM season seems to
be better predicted than SON in the western parts of
East Africa and to a lesser extent in eastern Kenya. The
correlation for SON is more than 0.25 for most parts of
East Africa except for Uganda and southern Tanzania.
It would seem that CCA-NMS could neither predict
MAM nor SON rainfall for southeastern Tanzania. The
TABLE 1. An example of a square contingency table prepared for
the grid 15 SON prediction experiment at the calibration stage.
Predicted categories
Observed Near-
categories Dry normal Wet Total
Dry 8 4 2 14
Near-normal 2 7 5 14
Wet 4 3 8 15
Total 14 14 15 43
2109
observed SON field (Fig. 6a) shows that Uganda and
the western to central Kenya highlands experienced wet-
ter than normal conditions while most of Tanzania and
northern to northwestern Kenya experienced dry con-
ditions. Similar spatial patterns are also found in the
predicted fields of CCA-NMS with some minor differ-
ences (Fig. 6b).
b. CCA model diagnostics
Canonical correlation maps between precipitation and
SST 1 SLP fields provide useful diagnostic outputs. We
subjected the 10 driest SON rain seasons (bottom 10%
of the 190097 dataset) and the corresponding SST and
SLP fields of the previous season (JJA) to a CCA anal-
ysis to explore their (linear) relationships during dry
conditions. The composite dataset was based on the as-
sumption that low SON rainfall and the associated SLP
SST fields could be considered as a sequence of discrete
episodes separated by periods whose variations were
of minor interest.
The canonical correlations for the first three modes
(j1 to j 3 ) were all greater than 0.8, which means all
three modes were important. However we only analyzed
the j 3 canonical correlation maps of the 10 driest SON
season (figure not shown). The j 3 canonical mode hmap
(predictand) shows negative correlation for most of the
western parts of East Africa. During this season, the
northeasterly trade winds flow into East Africa generally
through two tracks (Findlatter 1971). One is a dry con-
tinental track from Arabia and the other is a humid track
over the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Inspection of
the JJA SST gmap (predictor) reveals that there is a
narrow coastal band starting from Madagascar reaching
the northeastern coast of Africa and extending all the
way to the west coast of India, which is negatively cor-
related to the precipitation. A buildup of cold SSTs dur-
ing JJA in this ocean sector probably reduces the amount
of moisture advected by the north easterlies giving rise
to anomalously low SON rainfall. The JJA SLP gmap
shows a buildup of the SLP in the south-southwest In-
dian Ocean that likely reduces the possibility of a low
2110 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 16

TABLE 2. A summary of the skill measures obtained from the model runs using a 44-yr moving window. The unweighted results refer
to runs where no weight obtained from the NMS algorithm was applied to the predictor fields. In all cases a combined SSTSLP predictor
field was used.

Weights optimized by Simplex

Calibration Validation
(194486) (198797)
Grid
Zone no. Rmse r HK Rmse r HK
1 25 1.12 0.07 20.08 1.27 0.13 20.24
26 1.08 0.03 20.05 1.20 0.16 0.31
2 18 1.30 0.22 0.13 0.82 0.25 0.04
21 1.07 0.12 0.09 1.22 0.21 20.10
22 1.26 0.20 20.05 0.95 0.20 20.38
3 23 1.21 0.20 0.06 1.23 0.34 0.31
24 1.35 0.20 0.16 0.84 0.44 0.31
27 1.13 0.21 0.16 1.16 0.24 0.18
28 1.16 0.18 20.08 0.93 0.42 0.18
4 16 1.17 0.36 0.13 1.29 0.13 0.04
20 1.28 0.26 0.20 1.14 0.09 0.04
5 11 1.26 0.31 0.30 0.89 0.33 0.31
12 1.17 0.17 0.30 0.87 0.03 0.45
15 1.17 0.33 0.09 1.08 0.28 0.31
19 1.22 0.37 0.13 0.91 0.47 0.31
6 6 1.02 0.47 0.30 0.63 0.45 20.10
7 1.09 0.39 0.13 0.88 0.07 20.04
8 1.06 0.42 0.20 1.28 20.04 0.18
9 1.25 0.12 0.06 0.74 0.22 0.18
10 1.22 0.21 20.10 0.73 20.01 0.04
14 1.27 0.05 0.02 0.83 0.44 0.04

SON rainfall for parts of eastern Tanzania and south-
eastern Kenya. It has been suggested that a strong Congo
air mass flowing into the region increases instabilities
of the convergence zone thus increasing the likelihood
of long rains in Kenya and Uganda (Okoola 1999). Low
SSTs in the Gulf of Guinea could probably affect the
strength and moisture content of the Congo air mass
that converges into East Africa, while a high DJF SLP
pressure zone in this ocean sector indicates strong south-
easterly monsoons, which diminishes the Congo air
mass converging into East Africa. Those years with
weak westerly incursions and subsequent strong flows

FIG. 5. The correlation ( r ) between the 198797 (validation) CCA predicted and observed (a) SON and (b) MAM
standardized precipitation for East Africa. Here r values that are statistically significant (i.e., r 0.5 for sample size
5 11 and one-sided t test at a 5 0.05) are the MAM precipitation in Uganda and the SON precipitation in southern
Kenya and northern Tanzania.
15 JUNE 2003 NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE 2111

TABLE 2. (Continued)

Unoptimized weights
Calibration Validation
(194486) (198797)
Rmse r HK Rmse r HK
1.2 20.10 20.08 1.37 20.31 20.10
1.2 20.26 20.19 1.17 0.17 0.18
1.4 0.09 0.13 0.84 20.11 0.31
1.1 0.00 0.02 1.31 20.16 20.24
1.3 0.14 0.06 0.99 20.09 0.31
1.2 0.12 0.02 1.61 20.23 20.10
1.4 0.06 0.09 1.32 20.23 0.04
1.1 0.23 0.09 1.44 20.25 20.38
1.1 0.23 0.13 1.02 0.21 0.18
1.3 0.17 0.13 1.31 0.09 0.04
1.4 0.01 0.13 1.24 20.09 20.10
1.3 0.14 0.37 0.97 0.00 20.10
1.2 0.23 0.16 0.72 0.28 20.10
1.2 0.17 0.16 1.22 0.03 20.10
1.3 0.27 0.13 1.09 20.07 0.04
1.2 0.13 0.06 0.80 20.10 20.10
1.2 0.12 0.20 0.71 0.40 0.07
1.1 0.19 0.20 0.97 0.49 0.04
1.2 0.15 0.16 0.65 20.11 0.04
1.3 0.07 20.04 0.65 20.08 20.24
1.2 0.14 0.16 0.59 0.25 20.10

of the southeasterly into the interior of East Africa have
been known to be particularly dry during MAM (Tre-
wartha 1981). Our observation agrees with their find-
ings.
We believe that our combined CCA-NMS system
likely predicts droughts with acceptable accuracy at the
seasonal lead time for some parts of East Africa by
capitalizing on the influence of low-frequency vari-
ability of SST and SLP of the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans. By developing essential relationships between
the current boundary condition (SST and SLP) and the
precipitation at the next season from sufficient past cli-
mate records, we could achieve reasonable predictions
of the average conditions of the latter. However, such

FIG. 6. Maps showing the (a) observed and (b) predicted SON standardized seasonal rainfall for 1988
(validation stage).
2112 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
predictions are prone to errors because our climate is
subjected to the influence of many variables. Apparently
CCA-NMS could predict up to 30%40% of the pre-
cipitation variability at the 3-month lead time in East
Africa.
6. Summary and conclusions
A linear, canonical correlation analysis (CCA) model
was driven by the simplex algorithm of Nelder and
Mead (1965), called CCA-NMS, to predict the stan-
dardized seasonal rainfall totals of East Africa (EA) at
the 3-month lead time using SLP and SST anomaly
fields of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans combined to-
gether by 24 optimized weights of NMS, and then re-
duced by the principal component analysis. Applying
the optimized weights to the predictor fields produced
significantly better MAM and SON seasonal rain fore-
casts than a direct application of the same, unweighted
predictor fields to CCA. This is likely the first attempt
where weights assigned to the predictor fields of CCA
were optimized in a systematic manner. Among the six
rainfall zones delineated in EA, northeastern Tanzania
and south-central Kenya (zone 5) had the best SON
predictions (HK scores . 10.3) and MAM was better
predicted in the western parts of EA. By applying CCA
to a composite set of the 10 driest SON and MAM
seasons in the 190097 period, respectively, we showed
that low SON rainfall in EA is associated with cold
SSTs off the Somali and the Benguela coasts. A buildup
of the low JuneJulyAugust (JJA) SSTs in this part of
the Indian Ocean probably reduces the amount of mois-
ture advected by the northeasterlies, resulting in anom-
alously low SON rain totals. Further, low MAM rainfall
is associated either with a buildup of low SSTs in the
Indian Ocean adjacent to EA and the Gulf of Guinea,
strong southeasterly monsoons, or a high SLP in the
southern Indian Ocean that prevents the Congo westerly
from depositing moisture in EA.
Acknowledgments. This research was partly supported
by the NSERC of Canada. The first author was also
supported by the Commonwealth scholarship of CIDA,
and graduate assistantship of the University of Alberta.
The rainfall data, gu23wld0096.dat, version 1.0, was
provided by Dr. Mike Hulme at the Climatic Research
Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk,
United Kingdom. The global 58 3 58 SST grid data for
18562000 was obtained from the Climatic Research
VOLUME 16
Unit of the University of East Anglia. The 58 3 58 SLP
grid data was obtained from the global mean sea level
pressure dataset (GMSLP2.1) of the Met Office.
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