THE UGANDA METEOROLOGICAL

SERVICES DATA OBSERVATIONS,

MANAGEMENT, SEASONAL FORECASTING
AND EARLY WARNING SYSTEM FOR
EXTREMES

KHALID Y. MUWEMBE
UGANDA DEPARTMENT OF METEOROLOGY
Mandate of DoM
To promote, monitor weather and climate
and provide weather forecasts and
advisories to Government and other
stakeholders for use in sustainable
development of the country
 The role of Meteorological Services
• Key player in monitoring and early warning on
weather related disasters at short and medium
range basis, including extremes such as droughts,
floods and landslides which cause suffering of poor
vulnerable communities
• As natural Resources are diminishing with increased
population pressure, it is becoming increasingly
important to utilize weather and climate information
in planning

• Due to increased Climate Change and Variability,

weather information is key to future adaptation and
mitigation measures which the country will have to
adopt to survive.
 DoM

Stations Data processing Training and

Forecasting
Networks And Applied Research

-Synoptic
-Data archive National
-Agromet -NMC Entebbe -Data entry Met.
-Hydromet -Soroti -Agromet Training
-Rainfall Forecast -Seasonal School
-AWS Office forecasting
etc
The Station Network
Division responsible
for the design of
optimal network
system,
implementation and
monitoring of the
networks

12 Synoptic stations
12 Hydromet stations
10 Agromet stations
300 rainfall stations
1 upper-air station
 Data management
• Data processing software
– CLICOM
– ClimSoft

• Data rescue efforts ongoing

– Data Lab established with 10 new computers and a
main server
– Digitisation ongoing for manned observations
– AWS data separated archives
 Services under applied Meteorology

• Seasonal climate outlook plus monthly reviews

and updates

• Agro-meteorological bulletins on dekadal (10-

days) basis

• Climatological data for different users and

clients

• User tailored information mainly for

construction and insurance companies
Seasonal climate Outlooks
• In Uganda climate related disasters are mainly
associated with seasonal rainfall extremes
resulting in droughts and in situations of enhanced
rainfall it may results into floods and landslides

• Extremes annually destroy an average of 800,000

hectares of crops leading to huge economic losses
especially among poor communities

• Droughts also results into epidemic outbreaks and

climate related conflicts

8
 Key Initiatives and Programmes

• Continuous support form IGAD Climate Prediction

and Application Centre (ICPAC) in preparation of
seasonal forecasts during PRE-COFs and COFs.
Regional hub for access to climate products and
data from international forecast centres

• Support from NOAA climate Centre for training two

staff in Numerical Weather Prediction and a work
station for running the WRF Model for short range
forecasting.
 DELINEATION OF HOMOGENEOUS
RAINFALL ZONES
• Principal Component Analysis
(PCA), derived from Factor
Analysis
• is a statistical technique used in
identifying a relatively small
number of factors that can be
used to represent relationships
among sets of many interrelated
variables.
• This method has widely been
used in determining regional
homogeneous rainfall zones over
East Africa, Ogallo (1989),
Oludhe, (1987), Basalirwa
(1991), Bamanya (2007)

UGANDA 10
DELINEATION OF HOMOGENEOUS
RAINFALL ZONES

11
UGANDA
 Searching and extraction of Predictors
a) SST Gradients
• Predictors these are Climate
Indicators used for Seasonal
Monitoring and Prediction
In case of Uganda’s climate they
include:-
(i) SST:- (SSTs and SST
Gradients, Indian Ocean
Dipole)
(ii) Quasi-Biennial Oscillation
(QBO)
(iii) Madden Julian Oscillation
(MJO)

(iv) Southern Oscillation Index

i) SSTs
Reconstructed sea surface temperature
(SST) dataset from Climate Prediction
Center (CPC) of NOAA
12
 RF ANOMALIES
RF ANOMALIES

-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
-3.0000
-2.0000
-1.0000
0.0000
1.0000
2.0000
3.0000
1961 4.0000
1961
1963
1963
1965
1965
1967
1967

1969
1969

1971
1971

1973 1973

1975 1975

1977 1977

TROR
1979 1979

1981 1981
Obs_(Morulem)

1983 1983

F3

YEARS
YEARS
1985 1985

1987 1987
old model

1989 1989

1991 1991

1993 1993
OBSERVED VS PREDICTED RF FOR ZONE5 (TORORO)
1995 1995
OBSERVED VS PREDICTED FOR ZONE3 (MORULEM)

1997 1997

1999 1999

2001 2001

2003 2003

2005
2005

RF ANOMALIES
R F A N O M A L IE S

-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
-2.000
-1.500
-1.000
-0.500
0.000
0.500
1.000
1.500
2.000
2.500
3.000

19 61
1961
19 63
1963
19 65
1965
19 67
1967
19 69
1969
19 71 1971
19 73 1973
19 75 1975

19 77 1977
EBBE

19 79 1979

19 81
Obs-(Soroti)

1981

19 83 1983
YEARS
YEARS

19 85 1985

19 87 1987
F3
forecast

19 89 1989

19 91 1991

19 93 1993
OBSERVED VS PREDICTED RF FOR ZONE6 (ENTEBBE)

19 95 1995
OBSERVED VS PREDICTED RF FOR ZONE4 (SOROTI)

19 97 1997

19 99 1999

20 01 2001

2003
13

20 03

20 05 2005
 Downscaling the forecast
• Interpretation and downscaling the seasonal climate
forecasts is done at national level.

• Seasonal post-COF stakeholder workshop to develop

advisories based on downscaled forecast

• Translation of the current seasonal forecast into seven local

languages. Audio and text translations are disseminated
using community FM radios and local language print media.
This initiative have been done for the last 3 seasonal
forecasts.

• Assessment of forecast performance

 WMO member Access: ECMWF & RSMC Guidance

PPT
atleast 10mm

PPT Convection
atleast 25mm & Wind
 EPSgrams
Entebbe
EFI
10m Wind gust

EFI
Total PPT index
 Impacts of extremes: Floods

Floods in Teso turns roads into river An officer jump flood waters to get to office

Flood water left businesses closed Vulnerable school girl struggles through floods
17
 Landslides as a result of excessive rainfall
Landslide causes degradation of land Rudimentary rescue efforts

Vulnerable communities displaced

Landslide destroys a homestead
 OBSERVED EXTREMES
Mbarara1999 drought and SOND 2000 floods

MBARARA 1999 AND 2000 CUMULATED RAINFALL

1400
1200
1000
CUM R/Fall

800
600
400
200
0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

1999 CUM TOT 2000 CUM TOT LTM CUM TOT

Analysis of recent severe droughts in Teso region

Crop failure
Soroti 1998, 1999 & 2005 drought due to late onset (2005 Drought)

Assessment shows that very late onset of

the rains was responsible for the 1998,
1999 & 2005 disaster
Analysis also clearly detects the severe
1998, 1999 & 2005 drought
To reduce on the impacts of severe
droughts, we need Early Warning System
Selected observed extremes: MAM 2013 season
• Butaleja District (Eastern Uganda) on 13 March, 2013 experienced
heavy rains, accompanied by hailstorm and strong winds. In less than
an hour, 40 houses had their roofs removed, while many crop fields
were destroyed and a 7 year boy was crushed and killed by collapsing
walls.

• On March 30, heavy storm hit Ntoroko Landing Site (western Uganda),
leaving more than 40 houses destroyed, including a school and three
churches.

• A tornado-like storm hits an Island on L. Victoria. Nearly half the

inhabitants of Lujjabwa island on Lake Victoria were rendered homeless
after a powerful storm descended from the clouds and swept over 75
shelters into the lake in early morning of Thursday 14th March.

• Floods ravage Kisoro (SW Uganda), over 150 families displaced.

Several houses were destroyed while community roads were eroded by
the floods rendering them impassable on Sunday 31 March.
 Rains wreck havoc in Kampala city slums

• These were the scenes in Kannyogoga Zone Namuwongo on the eve of Easter. Rains that
pounded most parts of country left untold damage and misery in their wake.
People's bedrooms were flooded as residents spent the entire day emptying their cramped
houses of bucketfuls of rain water.
 Floods in Nakaseke

• Sunday Vision on 7 April reports that floods triggered off by heavy rains cut off a police post in
Nakaseke and rendered several roads impassable cutting off several villages from the rest of
the district. The heavy rains also caused rivers like Lugogo and Lumansi to burst their banks,
washing away several feeder roads. The most affected sub-county is Kasangombe. The 2
major access feeder roads to Nakaseke Hospital were completely ruined
• We have seen and experienced
the devastating effects of the
extreme weather related risks
and hazard…

• So what next?
 The People-centered Early Warning Systems

A good EWS should be an integrated part of planning as a

program designed to mitigate and respond to the disaster

Traditional Framework People-centered framework

Empowering individuals
and communities threatened
by hazards to act in sufficient time
and in appropriate manner to
reduce the possibility of personal
injury, loss of life and damage to
property and the environment

EFFECTIVE EARLY WARNING

SYSTEM
How an early warning system collects and dissemination information

Department of Meteorology
Weather and
Hydrological
data
Local
Government
National
Service
Sectors? UGANDA Civil society
Early Warning
System Communities
(Coordinating
Body - OPM)

Mass Media
Government
Newsletters Local government Agencies
Communities Civil Society
 Challenges facing EWS
- Different hazards require different early warning
systems
- Effective communication with communities
- Information fatigue
- Links between analysis and action (particularly between
technical capacity to issue the warning and the public
capacity to respond effectively to warning)
- Accuracy and reliability of information
- Coverage and timeliness
- Political sensitivity
- Decentralization and local responsibility
 Way Forward on challenges
Therefore, in case of Uganda:

1. We need to understand the

roles and responsibilities of:

Developing and implementing
Communities
an effective early warning
Local governments
system requires the
Central government
contribution and coordination of
Regional institutions and
a wide range of individuals and organizations
institutions. Each has a
International agencies
particular function for which it
Non-governmental
should be responsible and organizations
accountable
The private sector

The science community
2. How should the coordination
body for early warning
system be constituted? Who
should be the members?
Conclusion
• Occurrence of disasters related to extreme
weather events cannot be stopped,
• Timely availability and application of
accurate meteorological information would
assist in making contingency plans thus
avoiding crisis management in responding
to these disasters
Conclusion Cont’d
• There is need to improve monitoring and
observations, modelling, prediction and
early warning capacities;
• Timely availability of data and information;
• Databases for development of drought and
flood indices;
• Vulnerability assessment under different
environmental conditions;
• Skilled human resources, education,
sensitisation and awareness
Thanx for your attention