MM5 Data for Africa

MM5 data for Africa are available for 2006 for southern Africa (Area 1), central Africa       (Area 2), northwest Africa (Area 3), east Africa (Area 4) and Madagascar & Mozambique (Area 5).


The data are available in two formats (tiled or native MM5 binary formats) and in the following three packages:
  • Individual Tiles
    • Area 1 (Southern Africa): 529 Individual Tiles
    • Area 2 (Central Africa): 960 Individual Tiles
    • Area 3 (Northwest Africa): 1178 Individual Tiles
    • Area 4 (East Africa): 594 Individual Tiles
    • Area 5 (Madagascar & Mozambique)

  • Regional Tile Groups (country-based groupings of tiled data)
    • Area 1 (Southern Africa): 6 Regional Tile Groups
    • Area 2 (Central Africa): 14 Regional Tile Groups
    • Area 3 (Northwest Africa): 20 Regional Tile Groups
    • Area 4 (East Africa): 5 Regional Tile Groups

  • Full Domain (in either tiled format for use with the CALPUFF modeling system, or native binary format for use with models such as CMAQ)
    • Area 1 (Southern Africa)
    • Area 2 (Central Africa)
    • Area 3 (Northwest Africa)
    • Area 4 (East Africa)

    Data for Egypt are available as part of the Middle East domain.

Quick Links

      ·  MM5 Data Characteristics

      ·  Higher Resolution MM5 Data

      ·  Individual Tiles

      ·  Regional Tile Groups

      ·  Full Domain

      ·  Price List

      ·  Available Storage Media

      ·  Software

      ·  Order Form

MM5 Data Characteristics

  • Hourly time resolution

  • Horizontal grid spacing: 12 km

  • 40 vertical half-sigma levels:
    • 16 levels below 1,000 meters
      • 11, 34, 60, 90, 123, 160, 202, 250, 304, 365, 434, 511, 600, 700, 814, 944 meters (nominal heights above sea level surface)
    • 9 levels between 1,000-3,500 meters
    • 15 levels above 3,500 meters

  • Projection Information:
    • Area 1 (Southern Africa)
           Projection: Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC)
           Origin: 30.0°S, 25.0°E
           Matching Latitudes: 13.0°S, 47.0°S
           Datum: NWS-84
    • Area 2 (Central Africa)
           Projection: Equatorial Mercator (EM)
           Origin: 0.0°N, 25.0°E
           Datum: NWS-84
    • Area 3 (Northwest Africa)
           Projection: Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC)
           Origin: 20.0°N, 15.0°E
           Matching Latitudes: 2.0°N, 38.0°N
           Datum: NWS-84
    • Area 4 (Eastan Africa)
           Projection: Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC)
           Origin: 20.0°N, 15.0°E
           Matching Latitudes: 2.0°N, 38.0°N
           Datum: NWS-84

Higher Resolution MM5 Data

Higher resolution MM5 data within the MM5 African domain is available by special order at 4 km or 1.33 km horizontal grid spacing. Please contact asg@trcsolutions.com for more information. Indicate the time period, location and resolution desired for the higher resolution data.

Individual Tiles

Below are plots for each Area showing the complete sets of Individual Tiles covering each Area.

Area 1 (Southern Africa):

Area 2 (Central Africa):

Area 3 (Northwest Africa):

Area 4 (East Africa):

Each tile covers an area of 120 km x 120 km (10 x 10 12-km grid points), except for some border tiles which are slightly larger. It includes hourly data for a full year. The time stamp of the data is UTC (GMT) time. Each tile contains 8760 hours (or 8784 hours for a leap year) plus 12 hours of the prior year (in UTC time) and 12 hours of the following year (in UTC time).

The hourly 3-D meteorological parameters included in the tiles are wind speed, wind direction, temperature, pressure, geopotential height, vertical velocity, relative humidity, mixing ratios for water vapor, cloud water, rain, ice, snow, graupel. Hourly surface (2-D) parameters in the tiles include sea-level pressure, rainfall amount, snow cover, short wave and long wave radiation at the surface, air temperature at 2m, specific humidity at 2m, wind speed and wind direction at 10m and sea surface temperature. There are 52,000 3-D data points per hour and 1,000 2-D data points per hour included in each tile. Each tile contains one year of data in a packed (compressed) format that is roughly 450 MB in size.

CALMET contains algorithms to compute the cloud cover and ceiling height for each CALMET grid point from the relative humidity and liquid water data contained in the MM5 dataset.

Files:
  • Spreadsheets for each Area containing the latitude/longitude corner coordinates of each Individual Tile:
    • Area 1 (Southern Africa)
          - Excel (121KB)
          - PDF (42KB)
    • Area 2 (Central Africa)
          - Excel (152KB)
          - PDF (57KB)
    • Area 3 (Northwest Africa)
          - Excel (152KB)
          - PDF (57KB)
    • Area 3 (Easst Africa)
          - Excel (132KB)
          - PDF (46KB)

  • Plots for each Area showing the Individual Tiles over each complete Area and corresponding set of Regional Tile Groups:

Regional Tile Groups

Below are plots for each Area showing the individual Regional Tile Groups, collections of tiles designed to cover one or more countries.

Area 1 (Southern Africa):

Area 2 (Central Africa):

Area 3 (Northwest Africa):

Area 4 (East Africa):

Files:

Full Domain

Below is a plot showing the currently available Areas of the African MM5 dataset.



Files:

Price List

Below is a summary of the pricing structure for each Area of the African MM5 Dataset.

Area 1 (Southern Africa):


Area 2 (Central Africa):


Area 3 (Northwest Africa):


Area 4 (East Africa):


Note that for larger areas it is more cost-effective to purchase either complete Regions or the Full Domain, while for smaller areas (120 km x 120 km) it may be more cost-effective to purchase Individual Tiles. For example, in the Full Domain option the cost per tile decreases to ~US$15 per tile, compared to a cost of US$200 per tile if purchased as Individual Tiles.

Tiles can be added at later times to cover larger areas. The extraction software provided with the tiles combines tiles into a single 3D.DAT file. Each tile contains one year of 3-D MM5 data for an area covering 120 km x 120 km.

Files:

Available Storage Media

Individual tiles or the Regional Tile Groupings are available on either DVD or USB hard drive. The Full Domain dataset is provided on a hard drive only. Be sure to specify the hard drive format on the order form and include the fee if requesting the data on a hard drive.

External USB Hard Drive
Hard drives provided are USB 2.0 external drives of at least 300 GB capacity. The power supply can handle voltage in the range of 100-240, 50-60Hz but contain a USA-type of electric plug that will require an adapter (not provided). User-supplied hard drives can be accommodated as a special order.

DVD/CD Orders
Orders of up to 10 tiles can be requested on CDs as a special order. Otherwise, data will be provided on DVDs.

Special Orders
Please contact asg@trcsolutions.com for information on special orders.

Software

Easy-to-use software is provided with the tiles to uncompress the data and create a CALMET-compatible 3D.DAT file. Any rectangular set of tiles can be combined into a 3D.DAT file for input into CALMET. The user selects a range in terms of latitude/longitude or MM5 grid points to be extracted and a time period and the extraction software will identify the tiles needed and perform the data extraction. New tiles can be added to existing tiles to allow the capability to create larger domains in the 3D.DAT files.

Order Forms

Area 1 (Southern Africa):
    - Word (86KB)
    - PDF (29KB)

Area 2 (Central Africa):
    - Word (86KB)
    - PDF (29KB)

Area 3 (Northwest Africa):
    - Word (87KB)
    - PDF (30KB)

Area 4 (East Africa):
    - Word (86KB)
    - PDF (28KB)

For questions or comments, please contact asg@trcsolutions.com.
~ Last updated: March 18, 2009 ~