Spatial patterns of precipitation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The paper investigates the spatial distribution of the seasonal and annual precipitation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The mean monthly precipitation data from 40 meteorological stations covering the standard climatological thirty-year period (1961−1990) were used for the analysis. Seven precipitation-based parameters were used to regionalize climate in Bosnia and Herzegovina by using the Principal Component Analysis and clustering techniques. The spatial patterns of precipitation were determined by using the R-mode principal component analysis with varimax rotation. The first two principal components, which describe 97.60% of the total variance, were taken into consideration. The varimax rotated scores were subjected to the Cluster Analysis in order to identify homogeneous precipitation regions over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agglomerative hierarchical clustering identified three sub-regions with different precipitation regimes. The complex orography, i.e., the influence of the Pannonian Basin, the Dinaric Alps, and the Adriatic Sea, is one of the most decisive factors that affect spatial patterns of precipitation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.