Antonio Zapata-Sierra

Extreme rainfall relationship in Mexico

Precipitation statistics are inherent to the design of water resource systems by the prediction of two aspects of hydrological processes: the extremes and the averages. Extreme rainfall with high temporal resolution (i.e. an hour or less) is necessary for the design of urban drainage systems, as urban areas are generally characterized by their fast response. However, most weather stations only register daily rainfall. The relationship between the hourly intensity of rain and the daily rain intensity is called parameter K. Thus, if extreme daily rainfall data is available, the parameter K allows the estimation of extreme short-duration rainfall intensities. This study offers a map with the regionalization of the relationship between the maximum intensities of precipitation occurring over intervals 1 and 24 hours (parameter K) for the whole country of Mexico, facilitating the description of the geographical variability of precipitation. In this country a high spatial variability of the parameter K was observed, according to the large area studied.