Thesis Defense Announcement

The Herff College of Engineering announces the Final Thesis Defense of

Patricio Munoz Proboste

for the Degree of Master of Science

on October 30, 2018 at 2:00 PM in Engineering Administration Building, Room 202C - Engineering Conference Room

Advisor: Claudio Meier 

Effects of Storm Type on the Variability of Rainfall Sampling Adjustment Factors

ABSTRACT: Rainfall is a continuous process which we are only able to measure over discrete aggregation periods. This temporal discretization introduces a negative bias when extracting rainfall maxima for short durations similar to the instrument resolution. Empirically-derived correction factors known as Hershfield or rainfall sampling adjustment factors (SAF) have been widely used to correct this bias. Nevertheless, there are conflicting definitions for SAFs in the literature, and no one has looked in detail at how they vary spatially, between seasons, and as function of storm type. Concurrent, 34-yr long rainfall records from 52 meteorological stations distributed throughout Switzerland were used to study SAF variability. It was found that SAFs display a large variability across stations and within station, the latter, because of the different ways of totalizing. SAFs are, on average, higher for convective storms and during the warm season. There is no clear spatial pattern across Switzerland, nor any relationship with elevation