Original paper
Seasonal Cycle in German Daily Precipitation Extremes
Fischer, Madlen; Rust, Henning W.; Ulbrich, Uwe
Meteorologische Zeitschrift Vol. 27 No. 1 (2018), p. 3 - 13
35 references
published: Jan 29, 2018
published online: Dec 1, 2017
manuscript accepted: Jul 13, 2017
manuscript revision received: May 4, 2017
manuscript revision requested: Mar 6, 2017
manuscript received: Dec 8, 2016
Open Access (paper may be downloaded free of charge)
Abstract
The seasonal cycle of extreme precipitation in Germany is investigated by fitting statistical models to monthly maxima of daily precipitation sums for 2,865 rain gauges. The basis is a non-stationary generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution variation of location and scale parameters. The negative log-likelihood serves as the forecast error for a cross validation to select adequate orders of the harmonic functions for each station. For nearly all gauges considered, the seasonal model is more appropriate to estimate return levels on a monthly scale than a stationary GEV used for individual months. The 100-year return-levels show the influence of cyclones in the western, and convective events in the eastern part of Germany. In addition to resolving the seasonality, we use a simulation study to show that annual return levels can be estimated more precisely from a monthly-resolved seasonal model than from a stationary model based on annual maxima.
Keywords
Extreme value theory • Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution • seasonal variations • extreme precipitation • rain gauge data • climate