Journal article

The within-day behaviour of 6 minute rainfall intensity in Australia

AW Western, B Anderson, L Siriwardena, FHS Chiew, A Seed, G Blöschl

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences | COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH | Published : 2011

Open access

Abstract

The statistical behaviour and distribution of high-resolution (6 min) rainfall intensity within the wet part of rainy days (total rainfall depth >10 mm) is investigated for 42 stations across Australia. This paper compares nine theoretical distribution functions (TDFs) in representing these data. Two goodness-of-fit statistics are reported: the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between the fitted and observed within-day distribution; and the coefficient of efficiency for the fit to the highest rainfall intensities (average intensity of the 5 highest intensity intervals) across all days at a site. The three-parameter Generalised Pareto distribution was clearly the best performer. Good results wer..

View full abstract

University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant (DP-0557799) and the WARECALC project of the European Union (FP7-PEOPLE programme). AWW was supported by a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme fellowship from the Australian Academy of Sciences. We thank Drs Murray Peel and Steve Wealands for their constructive advice and technical guidance.