Comparison of Ocean and Island Rainfall in the Tropical North Pacific

Abstract

Recent estimates of oceanic rainfall were compared with measured amounts at 35 islands in the central and western North Pacific. A group of stations on small atolls in a region of convective rainfall had amounts that were 1.2 times that over the open ocean; but other low islands in an area of frontal rain received over twice as much rainfall as at sea. The greatest rainfall occurred at a group of high islands in the western Pacific. Even on small atolls, island data are not reliable indices of oceanic rainfall.