Multisensor Satellite Analysis Of The November 2001 Algeria Flood

A major flood event occurred in northern Africa (Algeria) at the beginning of Novem- ber 2001. After several months of drought, torrential rain, over 100 mm of rain fell in 6 hour, and strong winds of up to 200 km/h caused huge mudslides and floods on Sat- urday 10 November in the capital Algiers and other villages, particularly in the coastal zones, causing more than 700 deaths according to official reports. The aim of the pa- per is to show the evolution of this event as seen from a satellite point of view, and to compare it with the simulation of the event performed with the non-hydrostatical UW model developed at the University of Wisconsin (Tripoli, 1992). In such perspective we will discuss results obtained combining measurements acquired by different sen- sors to better exploit the potential of each technique. The principal satellite observing the event was the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) carry on board the sensors: PR (Precipitation Radar), TMI (TRMM Microwave Imager) and LIS (Light- ning Image Sensor). Also, the measurements acquired by the SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave Imager) on board the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites are available. In this way the retrieved precipitation from radar and mi- crowave sensors can be related to the lightning occurrences and the microphysical cloud content.