Premium
Fitting meteorological extremes by various distributions
Author(s) -
Gringorten I. I.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49708837607
Subject(s) - limiting , extreme value theory , exponential function , magnitude (astronomy) , environmental science , exponential distribution , atmospheric sciences , climatology , mathematics , distribution (mathematics) , meteorology , statistics , geography , geology , physics , astrophysics , mathematical analysis , mechanical engineering , engineering
Abstract Meteorologists often fit extreme values by the double‐exponential distribution, the limiting form of distributions of the exponential type. But distributions of some extremes, such as the lowest annual temperatures (1875–1960) at Washington, D.C., fall well short of the limiting form. Alternative means of fitting sets of extreme values are proposed. For data such as the highest January temperature at Washington, an extra physical phenomenon appears to restrict the magnitude of the largest values.