A binormal model of frequency distributions of daily maximum temperature

Abstract

Daily maximum temperature frequency distributions are usually modelled using a single normal distribution. For coastal localities especially, this often provides a poor approximation. Another approach is to represent the distribution as a combination of maritime and continental airstreams with each distinct airstream having a characteristic normal distribution. This approach yielded realistic results for southern Australian coastal sites. Model parameters were calculated using a down-hill simplex method of approximation and the goodness-of-fit was measured by the level of significance, α, using the χ2 test statistic. Levels of significance in most cases exceeded 0.010, and in some cases surpassed 0.50. By comparison, in most cases a single normal model was rejected at a critical level of 0.010. -from Authors