A statistical model for seasonal rainfall forecasting over the highlands of Eritrea

Abstract

A deterministic model was developed to investigate how global rainfall predictors relate to the two main rainy months in the highlands of Eritrea. The main aim of looking at these relationships is to develop a simple statistical model for forecasting rainfall amount. In a preliminary step, in order to identify the most influential rainfall predictor, a correlation matrix and step-wise regression of 10 predictors with different lags were analysed. The influence of the southern Indian Ocean Sea Surface Temperature was identified as the most influential predictor for the highland of Eritrea. A model was developed and validated giving a promising result. Keywords : Highlands of Eritrea, Indian Ocean SST, Jack-knife cross-validation, Statistical model Discovery and Innovation Vol. 19 (1) 2007: pp. 37-42