An Experimental Study of Spatial Variability of Rainfall

Abstract

patial variability of rainfall was studied through a gauge network on the Delmarva Peninsula. The gauge network consists of 11 dual- or triple-tipping-bucket sites ranging from 1- to 150-km separation distances. The time of the tip (0.254 mm) was recorded to a datalogger, and a continuous dataset was available from all sites for over 5 yr (May 2005?July 2010). A three-parameter exponential function was fitted to the paired correlations and the resultant correlation distance was 8?13 km during summer and 51?85 km during winter. The correlation distances showed pronounced year-to-year variability as being 8?43 km and 13?67 km during spring and autumn, respectively. The airmass convection was the main weather system during summer while nor?easters played an important role during winter. The 30-min integration and two-tip rain/no-rain threshold was selected for the base of this study. The correlation distance increased with longer integration periods and was 17 and 32 km for 30 min and 1 h, respectively.