1-minute integrated rain rate statistics estimated from tropical rainfall measuring mission data

Abstract

This letter presents a new model for the prediction of the 1-min integrated complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) of the rain rate, , valid for tropical and equatorial regions (specifically, latitudes ranging from 35 to 35 ). The proposed model inherits its analytical formulation from the method currently recommended by the International Telecommunication Union—Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) for global prediction (Annex 1 of recommendation P.837-6), but it relies on Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data, in place of the ERA40 database, for the extraction of the required local meteorological inputs. With respect to the ITU-R model, the proposed model requires a lower number of inputs (two instead of three) and, in addition, it shows a better prediction performance when tested against the experimental curves (tropical/equatorial sites) included in the global DBSG3 database of ITU-R