P1.18
Analyzing Statistical Models of Hourly Precipitation Events
Jennifer Esker, Oklahoma Weather Center REU Program, Glen Carbon, IL; and H. Brooks and M. Baldwin
Understanding the precipitation distribution of the United States is useful for many different fields of study, but exact examination of the distribution would require studying an overwhelming amount of data. Constructing statistical models breaks down the large amounts of data into sets that are manageable while still producing a detailed analysis. This study applied gamma distributions to a year’s worth of processed hourly precipitation data in order to examine the national precipitation. The set represents all precipitation events of the contiguous United States as elliptical objects and each object includes a precipitation regime classification based on the gamma parameters assigned to the precipitation within the object. Starting with a general model of the national precipitation this analysis categorized the data by location, season and precipitation regime to produce detailed relationships. Examining plots of the gamma parameters also provided insights into the variability of these categories and additionally confirmed that these models present an accurate representation of annual precipitation.
Poster Session 1, Poster Session
Sunday, 11 January 2004, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM, Room 608/609
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