工程水文学-BasicHydrology-HYDR-310-Lecture4-2003.pptVIP

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Basic Hydrology (HYDR 310)(Topic 2) Precipitation processes, measurements, and variability (Part II) Dr. Xixi (Jack) Wang, P.E. Precipitation Variations Precipitation can be in forms of: ? liquid droplets (e.g., rainfall) ? ice crystals (e.g., snow, hail, sleet) ? mixture (e.g., ice rain) Precipitation is usually recorded as the equivalent water depth, EWD (in, mm) For rainfall, its depth is EWD For ice crystals or mixture, they need to be melted and recorded as EWD Geographic variation: global, regional, and basinwide Temporal variation: annual, seasonal, monthly, daily, hourly, minutes For a given location and temporal scale, precipitation varies with altitude Precipitation Variations: Geographic Highest in the tropical regions on either side of the equator Decrease toward the Poles due to the decreasing temperature Decrease with the distance from the oceans Mountains can cause dramatic differences over short distances Precipitation Variations: Geographic Precipitation Variations: Geographic /printable/precipitation.html Precipitation Variations: Temporal From year to year Within a year, from season to season The temporal variation scale, called “duration” can be as small as minutes In hydrology, the commonly used “durations” are: ?mean annual ?maximum 1 year ?maximum 1 month ?maximum 2 or 3 days ?maximum 24 hours ?maximum 12 hours ?maximum 30 minutes ?others Precipitation Variations: Temporal Hyteograph: a plot showing the precipitation with respect to time at the duration interval Precipitation Variations: Temporal Summary statistics: reflect the temporal trend and pattern of precipitation Duration min (Pmin) max (Pmax) mean ( ) median (Pm) standard deviation (STD) coe. of variation ( ) 24 hours 2 days monthly annual 30 minuts For specific studies, we may be only interested in some of these stat