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A theoretically derived distribution for annual rainfall totals
Author(s) -
Revfeim K. J. A.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.3370100607
Subject(s) - environmental science , climatology , poisson distribution , event (particle physics) , meteorology , statistics , atmospheric sciences , mathematics , geography , geology , physics , quantum mechanics
Rainfall occurs as synoptic events, and in many climates annual totals are made up of a moderate to large number of events of varying amounts. Assumption of an underlying Poisson process of event occurrence leads to a simple statistical density, in terms of physically meaningful parameters, for the fourth root of annual totals. Analysis of data for four locations gives estimates of event‐recurrence rates in agreement with the number of rain‐days in the local climates.