The Droplike Nature of Rain and Its Invariant Statistical Properties

Abstract

This study looks for statistically invariant properties of the sequences of inter-drop time intervals and drop diameters. The authors provide evidence that these invariant properties have the following characteristics: 1) large inter-drop time intervals (?10 s) separate drops of small diameter (?0.6 mm); 2) the rainfall phenomenon has two phases: a quiescent phase, whose contribution to the total cumulated flux is virtually null, and an active, nonquiescent, phase that is responsible for the bulk of the precipitated volume; 3) the probability density function of inter-drop time intervals has a power-law-scaling regime in the range of ?1 min and ?3 h); and 4) once the moving average and moving standard deviation are removed from the sequence of drop diameters, an invariant shape emerges for the probability density function of drop diameters during active phases.