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Estimating the precipitation climate
Author(s) -
Stidd C. K.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/wr009i005p01235
Subject(s) - precipitation , environmental science , flood myth , variance (accounting) , distribution (mathematics) , climatology , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , mathematics , statistics , geography , geology , mathematical analysis , accounting , archaeology , business
A method has been developed for estimating climatic expectancies of flood or drought from the mean and variance of a precipitation record. An interrelationship between the distributions of amounts from the various observing periods, e.g., hourly, daily, monthly, is demonstrated, so that any one of these records may be used to estimate the others. The method is based on the cube root normal distribution of precipitation and on an observed tendency for the distribution lines to be parallel. Graphs and tables are provided as an aid to making these estimates. The relationship between monthly, daily, and so forth amounts must be derived in some manner from the frequency spectrum of precipitation rates. This spectrum is shown to have the same profile as the theoretical spectrum for atmospheric pressure; thus the E(f) ∼ f −5/3 spectrum of kinetic energy regulates the relationship between precipitation distributions.