Quantifying damage contributions from convective and stratiform weather types: How well do precipitation and discharge data indicate the risk?

Abstract

Convective precipitation is intensifying in many regions, but potential implications of shifts in precipitation types on impacts have not been quantified. Furthermore, risk assessments often focus on rare extremes, but also more frequent hydro‐meteorological events burden private and public budgets. Here synoptic, hydrological, meteorological, and socio‐economic data are merged to analyse 25 years of damage claims in 480 Austrian municipalities. Exceedance probabilities of discharge and precipitation associated with damage reports are calculated and compared for convective and stratiform weather patterns. During April to November, 60% of claims are reported under convective conditions. Irrespective of the weather type, most of the accumulated cost links to minor hazard levels, not only indicating that frequent events are a highly relevant expense factor, but also pointing to deficiencies in observational data. High uncertainty in damage costs attributable to extreme events demonstrates the questionable reliability of calculating low‐frequency event return levels. Significant differences exist among weather types. Stratiform weather types are up to 10 times more often associated with damaging extreme discharge or precipitation, while convective weather shows the highest nuisance level contributions. The results show that changes in convective precipitation are pertinent to risk management as convective weather types have contributed significantly to damage in the past.