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Some limiting forms of the poisson distribution of annual station precipitation
Author(s) -
Eagleson Peter S.
Publication year - 1981
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/wr017i003p00752
Subject(s) - storm , precipitation , poisson distribution , environmental science , limiting , atmospheric sciences , distribution (mathematics) , climatology , arid , meteorology , mathematics , geography , statistics , geology , mathematical analysis , paleontology , mechanical engineering , engineering
Annual station precipitation is represented as a seasonally stationary Poisson arrival process in terms of three constituent random variables: season length, number of storms, and storm depth, and the distribution of the annual total is derived. The contribution of each constituent variable to variance of the annual total precipitation is determined, and limiting distributions of the latter are derived by letting each contribution vanish separately. In humid climates it is shown that the storm depth variability predominates, giving a distribution which is closely normal. In arid climates the number of storms controls and gives a highly skewed distribution. All cases are compared with observations.