Geoinformatics and Earth Observation Laboratory (GEOlab)

Department of Geography ◆ Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) ◆ Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) ◆ The Pennsylvania State University

Extreme Heat Event Identification with Analog Ensemble


Overview

Heat waves are notoriously difficult to forecast due to their highly localized variables, yet remain the world's deadliest natural disaster. This project hopes to use the Analog Ensemble technique (AnEn), which generates probability information from a deterministic predictive model, to more accurately and more widely identify heat waves across the continental United States. An algorithm is desinged which calculates the heat index of a location from ensembles for apparent temperature and relative humidity, and compares it to the heat index of that location's ASOS weather station.