Journal article
Analyses Through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution Identify Contributions of Tropical Cyclones to Rainfall Extremes in the Eastern United States
Geophysical research letters, Vol.47(7), e2020GL087238
04/16/2020
DOI: 10.1029/2020GL087238
Abstract
Tropical cyclones (TCs) generate extreme precipitation with severe impacts across large coastal and inland areas, calling for accurate frequency estimation methods. Statistical approaches that take into account the physical mechanisms responsible for these extremes can help reduce the estimation uncertainty. Here we formulate a mixed‐population Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution explicitly incorporating non‐TC and TC‐induced rainfall and evaluate its implications on long series of daily rainfall for six major U.S. urban areas impacted by these storms. We find statistically significant differences between the distributions of TC‐ and non‐TC‐related precipitation; moreover, including mixtures of distributions improves the estimation of the probability of extreme precipitation where TCs occur more frequently. These improvements are greater when rainfall aggregated over durations longer than one day are considered.
Plain Language Summary
The accurate estimation of the frequency of extreme rainfall has broad implications in designing mitigation measures, policy making, risk management, geology/geomorphology, insurance and reinsurance, and water‐borne disease prevention and management. In many parts of the world tropical cyclones play a significant role in generating heavy rainfall, but the evaluation of their contribution to the frequency of extremes is problematic, due to the low number of tropical cyclones in the measured historical record. Here, we introduce a new statistical tool that explicitly includes tropical cyclone rainfall together with rainfall generated by other physical mechanisms and provides a way to maximize the information that can be extracted from available observations. When applied to locations on the U.S. eastern seaboard, we find that this method significantly improves estimates of extreme rainfall.
Key Points
We study rainfall extremes from tropical cyclone (TC) and non‐TC rainfall mixtures at six U.S. locations
The Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution based on mixed populations outperforms single population formulations
The advantage of considering different rainfall sources is greater for 3‐day cumulative rainfall
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Analyses Through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution Identify Contributions of Tropical Cyclones to Rainfall Extremes in the Eastern United States
- Creators
- Arianna Miniussi - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental ResearchGabriele Villarini - University of IowaMarco Marani - University of Padua
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Geophysical research letters, Vol.47(7), e2020GL087238
- DOI
- 10.1029/2020GL087238
- ISSN
- 0094-8276
- eISSN
- 1944-8007
- Number of pages
- 9
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation (NSF) (EAR‐1840742) Venice Water Authority (Venice 2021 Research Program) Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo (Foundation Cariparo) USACE Institute for Water Resources
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/16/2020
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering; IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984197300802771
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