Open AccessGenerating Multiyear Gridded Daily Rainfall over New Zealand
Author(s) -
Andrew Tait,
Richard Turner
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of applied meteorology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1520-0450
pISSN - 0894-8763
DOI - 10.1175/jam2279.1
Subject(s) - environmental science , mesoscale meteorology , climatology , elevation (ballistics) , hydrology (agriculture) , meteorology , geology , geography , mathematics , geometry , geotechnical engineering
Daily rainfall totals are a key input for hydrological models that are designed to simulate water and pollutant flow through both soil and waterways. Within New Zealand there are large areas and many river catchments where no long-term rainfall observations exist. A method for estimating daily rainfall over the whole of New Zealand on a 5-km grid is described and tested over a period from January 1985 to April 2002. Improvement over a spatial interpolation method was gained by scaling high-elevation rainfall estimates using simulated mesoscale model rainfall surfaces that are generated for short periods in 1994 and 1996. This method is judged to produce reasonable and useful estimates of daily rainfall.