Spatiotemporal Variability of Extreme Rainfall Indices over Nicaragua between 2001 and 2016 and Their Relationship with Teleconnection Patterns

Abstract

Abstract We investigated nine indices of spatiotemporal extreme precipitation events over Nicaragua during 2001–16, from GPCC, Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS), and IMERG, and their correlation with teleconnection patterns. The main objectives were to evaluate the variability of extreme precipitation events, to know the performance of IMERG and CHIRPS in the characterization of these extreme events, using GPCC and four rain gauges as references, and finally to determine the teleconnection patterns that have the highest correlation with these indices. The spatial coverage of the area with the highest number of consecutive days with daily precipitation less than 1 mm corresponds to the Pacific region, with annual mean values of up to 120 continuous days. Some extreme precipitation event indices (RR, RX1day, and RX5day) show a decreasing trend, suggesting that the study area has been experiencing a reduction of extreme precipitation indices in terms of intensities and duration throughout the study period. In addition, it was observed that CHIRPS shows a better fit when dealing with precipitation events that do not exceed certain thresholds and IMERG improves when describing intense precipitation event patterns. We found that the tropical Pacific SST EOF (EOFPAC), Niño-3.4, Pacific warm pool region (PACWARM), and SOI have a greater influence on extreme precipitation events, these results suggest that they are being controlled by ENSO episodes, providing a better understanding of the climate configuration, as a prediction and forecasting potential, useful for agriculture, land use, and risk management.