A stochastic weather model for generating daily precipitation series at ungauged locations in the Catskill Mountain region of New York state

Abstract

Information on the variability of precipitation in time and space is critical for many water resource projects. However, precipitation records at the location of interest are often either limited or unavailable due to an inadequate network of rainfall measurements. To address this need, regionalization methods have been employed to characterize spatial patterns of precipitation and to transfer precipitation information from one location to another where records are scarce. Hence, the overall objective of the present paper is to propose a stochastic weather model for generating daily precipitation at ungauged locations. The proposed approach consists of two components: (a) a regionalization approach for identifying homogeneous groups of observed daily precipitation series, and (b) a stochastic model for constructing daily precipitation events at ungauged locations within homogeneous groups. This statistical approach identifies groups of precipitation stations with similar statistical characteristics based on the combination of two multivariate statistical techniques: principal component analysis (PCA) and ordinal factor analysis (OFA). While the application of PCA in climatological regionalization studies based on precipitation amount is common, the application of OFA to include precipitation occurrence in the identification of regions is unusual. The feasibility of the approach is assessed using daily precipitation data from a network of precipitation stations in the Catskill Mountain region of New York State, United States.