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Dr 

Mdoka, Marshall Lison

Faculty: Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering
Department: Geography and Environmental Studies
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9081-5091
Research Interest(s): Climate variability and climate change, Regional climate modeling, Monitoring and prediction, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote sensing, Environmental management, Hydrometeorology.
Active Research Project(s): Weather and Climate Extreme Events Forecasting, Analysis and Review over Southern Africa. Evaluation of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models forecast and validation satellite-based estimates over Southern Africa.
Biography: Marshall L. Mdoka joined the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies in January 2017. Marshall is a Climatologist who is also a professionally qualified United Nations World Meteorological Organization (UN-WMO) Class1 Meteorologist. Marshall’s research interests are in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. He teaches 3rd Year Physical Geography modules of 4GES341 – Weather, Climate Variability and Prediction and 4GES 322 – Environmental Fieldwork and Research, Honours’ module of 4GES502 Applied Climatology and Post-Grad Supervision.
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20231

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    PublicationJournal Article
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    Cut-off lows over South Africa: a review
    2023
     | MDPI
    Every year, cut-off low (COL) pressure systems produce severe weather conditions and heavy rainfall, often leading to flooding, devastation and disruption of socio-economic activities in South Africa. COLs are defined as cold-cored synoptic-scale mid-tropospheric low-pressure systems which occur in the mid-latitudes and cause persistent heavy rainfall. As they occur throughout the year, these weather systems are important rainfall producing systems that are also associated with extreme cold conditions and snowfalls. An in-depth review of COLs is critical due to their high impacts which affect some parts of the country regularly, affecting lives and livelihoods. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of the literature on COLs over the South African domain, whilst also comparing them with their Southern Hemisphere counterparts occurring in South America and Australia. We focus on the occurrence, development, propagation, dynamical processes and impacts of COLs on society and the environment. We also seek to understand stratospheric–tropospheric exchanges resulting from tropopause folding during the occurrence of COLs. Sometimes, COLs may extend to the surface, creating conditions conducive to extreme rainfall and high floods over South Africa, especially when impinged on the coastal escarpment. The slow propagation of COLs appears to be largely modulated by a quasi-stationary high-pressure system downstream acting as a blocking system. We also reviewed two severe COL events that occurred over the south and east coasts and found that in both cases, interactions of the low-level flow with the escarpment enhanced lifting and deep convection. It was also determined from the literature that several numerical weather prediction models struggle with placement and amounts of rainfall associated with COLs, both near the coast and on the interior plateau. Our study provides the single most comprehensive treatise that deals with COL characteristics affecting the South African domain.
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