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How Often Does It Really Rain?

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
 [1];  [2]
  1. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States); DOE/OSTI
  2. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States)
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The perception about whether a place is a nice place to live often depends on how often it rains (or snows). The frequency relates to how dreary the weather appears, and it is the duration much more than the amount that clouds perceptions. Yet, information about the frequency of rainfall, or precipitation in general, is spotty at best. In this paper, we analyze a new near-global (60°N–60°S) dataset at hourly time scales and 0.25° resolution. The dataset, the newly calibrated Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH), enables comparison of results with 3-hourly and daily data, which is what has previously been available, and seasonal aspects are also examined. The results are quite sensitive to both the spatial scales of the data and their temporal resolutions, and it is important to get down to hourly values to gain a proper appreciation of the true frequency. At 1° resolution, values are 35% higher than for 0.25°. At 3-hourly resolution, they are about 25% higher than hourly, and at daily resolution, they are about 150% higher than hourly on average. Overall, near-global (60°N–60°S) precipitation occurs 11.0% ± 1.1% (1 sigma) of the time or, alternatively, 89.0% of the time it is not precipitating. But outside of the intertropical and South Pacific convergence zones, where values exceed 30%, and the arid and desert regions, where values are below 4%, the rates are more like 10% or so, and over land where most people live, values are closer to about 8%.
Research Organization:
Univ. Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012711
OSTI ID:
1541808
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Journal Name: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 99; ISSN 0003-0007
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Validating the Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement in Terms of Diurnal Variability With Hourly Gauge Observations Collected at 50,000 Stations in China journal September 2018
Precipitation Characteristics in the Community Atmosphere Model and Their Dependence on Model Physics and Resolution journal July 2019
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Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate journal October 2019
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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
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