Determination of precipitation return values in connection to severe rainfall event of 2010 in Pakistan

Abstract

Extreme weather events over Pakistan have been increasing. This is contributing to the ever enhancing human suffering of the region. The present study investigates the extreme rainfall in Pakistan by using General Pareto Distribution (GPD) method. This in turn is used to analyze extraordinary rainfalls of summer 2010. The results indicate that during the summer 2010 northwestern parts of Pakistan received abnormally high rainfalls. Of which a few places got rainfalls with return periods of more than fifty years. Mainly northern and north eastern parts of the country have the highest return year values during the monsoon season. Similarly south eastern parts of the country also show high return year values in summer. While most western parts of the country have small return year values in the monsoon or summer season. Climatologically these areas have comparatively less precipitation during summer monsoon. The weather pattern which developed in 2010 was not the usual convective weather system which is the hall mark of the monsoon season; instead it was a mesoscale convective system with stratiform precipitation.