The rainfall movement — A valuable complement to short-term rainfall data

Abstract

The lack of sufficiently good short-term rainfall data causes errors in runoff simulation in urban areas. The rainfall input traditionally used in urban rainfall-runoff simulation models does not take into account areal and kinematic properties of intensive rainstorms which are relevant in this context. Rainfall data used for runoff simulation may be complemented with rainfall movement parameters, which, in turn, can be calculated from high-altitude wind movement measured at most airports. On examination of ten rainfall events observed in Lund, it is shown that about equally good results in single-event runoff simulations may be obtained using rainfall data from twelve gauges on a 20 km 2 area as when the data from only three gauges complemented with rainfall movement parameters are used. This exemplifies benefits of using rainfall movement as additional information that may favorably complement inadequate rainfall data.