Birth of a parent: The Wakeby Distribution for modeling flood flows

Traditional distributions, such as the log normal distribution, inadequately model flood flows for certain records. The Wakeby distribution is defined to overcome this deficiency, and its analytical form proves easy to use in many applications. Tests show that a significant number of flood records are inadequately fit by the three‐parameter log normal. The Wakeby demonstrates the ‘separation effect’ that other distributions fail to show. Most other distributions can be mimicked by the Wakeby but not always vice versa. Thus choosing to use the Wakeby does not limit the shape of the resulting curve to as great a degree as choosing a conventional distribution.