Regionalization of Precipitation in Jordan

Abstract

This study aimed to cluster the temporal and spatial precipitation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Rainfall data for a period of 53 years (1960–2013) at 32 stations representing the whole country was used. The clustering process was conducted temporally and spatially using the Ward’s linkage method of Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC). The study revealed three groups of months which are, rainy months group (December–March), moderately rainfall months group (April–November) and dry rainfall months group (May– October). Spatially, the country consists of four homogeneous groups based on the root mean square of standard deviation (RMSSTD). The first and the second clusters include the northern part of Jordan characterized by high rainfall intensity, whereas the third group includes the southern part of Jordan and the last cluster represents the Badia and desert of Jordan country.