Sensitivity of the orographic precipitation across the Australian Snowy Mountains to regional climate indices

Abstract

The wintertime (May–October) precipitation across south-eastern Australia, and the Snowy Mountains, was studied for 22 years (1995–2016) to explore the sensitivity of the relationships between six established climate indices and the precipitation to the orography, both regionally and locally in high-elevation areas. The high-elevation (above 1100 m) precipitation records were provided by an independent network of rain gauges maintained by Snowy Hydro Ltd. These observations were compared with the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) precipitation analysis, a commonly used gridded nationwide product. As the AWAP analysis does not incorporate any high-elevation sites, it is unable to c..