Estimates of Extreme Precipitation Frequency from Spatially Dense Observations

A method for estimating 24-hour rainfall totals associated with seven return periods between 1- and 1000-year is presented. The technique employs spatially dense rain gauge observations from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) network to estimate rainfall frequency in the Front Range region of the Rocky Mountains. The distribution of all values for each return period is emphasized to communicate uncertainty. The analysis avoids many of the difficulties in using observations from a single station, and yields some nice tools for interpreting any given precipitation.