Characteristics of Summer Precipitation in Chongqing Based on Hourly Rain Gauges Data

Abstract

Based on the hourly precipitation data of 34 meteorological stations in Chongqing in the summers (June to August) from 1996 to 2015, the spatial distribution and daily variation of precipitation amount (PA), precipitation intensity (PI), precipitation frequency (PF), and precipitation extremes in Chongqing are analyzed. The results show that, from the perspective of spatial distribution, the precipitation amount (PA) in Chongqing presents a distribution pattern of more around and less in the middle; the area with high precipitation intensity (PI) is mainly located in the northeast of Chongqing; the large value centers of precipitation frequency (PF) are located in the south and west of Chongqing and near Chengkou. On the spatial distribution of hourly precipitation, the precipitation in most areas of Chongqing is mainly concentrated at night [0200–0900 BT (1800–0100 UTC)], and the rain belt spreads from west to east with the passage of time. On the whole, interannual evolution characteristics of summer precipitation amount, precipitation intensity, and precipitation frequency in Chongqing are basically the same, showing a fluctuation characteristic without obvious trend, but there are some peaks and valleys. From the perspective of diurnal cycle, a larger peak of PA in Chongqing appears near 0300 BT (1900 UTC), another lower peak around 1200 BT (0400 UTC), a larger peak of PI around 0300 BT (1900 UTC), another smaller peak around 1500 BT (0700 UTC), and only one peak of PF around 0700 BT (2300 UTC). The extreme precipitation of different duration in summer in Chongqing is closely related to the topographic characteristics and weather system, the extreme centers of each diachronic precipitation are mainly located near Shapingba, Kaizhou, Youyang, and Shizhu, and the time evolution characteristics of the extreme precipitation are not obvious, but the trend of the extreme precipitation accumulated in 1 h, 3 h, 6 h, or 12 h is basically the same.