Xia Sun
Climate Data Analyst Phone: Email: xsun8@ncsu.edu
Biography
Xia is a leading contributor to advanced climate risk assessment and operational forecasting. Her doctoral research focused on enhancing preseason hurricane forecast accuracy, where she developed a probabilistic model optimized with machine learning techniques for Atlantic hurricane season predictions. This model has been operational since 2017, and she is currently leading the annual hurricane season outlook process. Her portfolio also includes extreme precipitation analysis and climate resilience. She has been actively involved in national efforts to develop updated, climate-informed standards for precipitation frequency used across engineering and infrastructure planning to better manage future climate extremes.
Prior research also focused on numerical modeling of atmosphere–ocean interaction. She adapted this integrated system to conduct regional weather and climate research over East Africa, leading to active participation in the Future Climate for Africa programs.
Publications
Kunkel, K.E., X. Sun, and L. Sun, 2025: Projected changes in rare extreme precipitation design values in the United States due to global warming. Frontiers of Earth Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-024-1142-x
Anyah, R., Xia, S., Semazzi, F. Influence of water table dynamics on spatial and temporal patterns of hydroclimate extremes over Lake Victoria Basin, East Africa: Comparison of wet and dry years. International Journal of Climatology, 2022, 1– 21. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7682.
Sun, X. and L. Xie, 2022: A Climatological Study of Successive Tropical Cyclone Events in North Atlantic. Atmosphere, 13 (11), 1909. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos13111909
Sun, X. and L. Xie, 2022: A Comparative Study on the Performances of Spectral Nudging and Scale-Selective Data Assimilation Techniques for Hurricane Track and Intensity Simulations. Climate, 10 (11), 168. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli10110168
Sun, X., Xie, L., Shah, S.U., Shen, X. A Machine Learning Based Ensemble Forecasting Optimization Algorithm for Preseason Prediction of Atlantic Hurricane Activity. Atmosphere, 2021, 12, 522. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12040522.
Asthana, T., Krim, H., Sun, X., Roheda, S., Xie, L. Atlantic Hurricane Activity Prediction: A Machine Learning Approach. Atmosphere, 2021, 12, 455. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12040455.
Sun, X., Xie, L., Semazzi, F., Liu, B. Effect of Lake Surface Temperature on the Spatial Distribution and Intensity of the Precipitation over the Lake Victoria Basin, Monthly Weather Review, 2015, 143(4), 1179-1192. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-14-00049.1.
R. Argent, X. Sun, F. Semazzi, L. Xie, B. Liu. The Development of a Customization Framework for the WRF Model over the Lake Victoria Basin, Eastern Africa on Seasonal Timescales, Advances in Meteorology, Vol. 2015, 653473. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/653473
Semazzi, F., B. Liu, L. Xie, K. Smith, M. Angus, M. Gudoshava, R. Argent, X. Sun, S. Liess, and A. Bhattacharya. Decadal Variability of the Eastern Africa Monsoon. CLIVAR Exchanges Special Issue on Monsoons: Advancing understanding of monsoon variability and improving pre-diction, 2015, Vol. 19, 15-19.
Sun, X., L. Xie, F. Semazzi, and B. Liu. A Numerical Investigation of the Precipitation over Lake Victoria Basin Using a Coupled Atmosphere-Lake Limited-Area Model. Advances in Meteorology, Vol. 2014, 897246, https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/960924.