A Novel Method to Define Hot and Cold Spells With Extreme Value Theory

Heat waves and hot spells (and cold) are some of the fenomena that have more impact on mortality, despite this, definitions and measurements of this fenomena are ambiguous and tend to change depending on the group or researcher(s) that are investigating a given event. This study investigate the problem and propose a novel approach to definig these extreame events. By employing the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) theory we study the max/min modeled and observed temperature in the northwestern state of Sonora, Mexico. Instead of using yearly or seasonaly percentiles to define the exteame events, an every day climatology is studied and GEV is applied to every single day distribution. Finally, a model of peak over threshold are investigated to analize quantile for the daily ma/min temperature respectively. Regarding the results obtained from this study, some applications in agriculture will be discussed.