A new index to quantify the extremeness of precipitation across scales

Voit, Paul; Heistermann, Maik

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2791-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2791-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Past and future European atmospheric extreme events under...

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2791-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 8

Research article

|

26 Aug 2022

Research article |

| 26 Aug 2022

A new index to quantify the extremeness of precipitation across scales

Paul Voit and Maik Heistermann

Data sets

ADKLIM Version 2017.002: Reprocessed gauge-adjusted radar data, one-hour precipitation sums (RW) T. Winterrath, C. Brendel, M. Hafer, T. Junghänel, A. Klameth, K. Lengfeld, E. Walawender, E. Weigl, and A. Becker https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD/RADKLIM_RW_V2017.002

Heavy precipitation events Version 2021.01 exceeding DWD warning level 3 for severe weather based on RADKLIM-RW Version 2017.002 K. Lengfeld, E. Walawender, T. Winterrath, E. Weigl, and A. Becker https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD/CatRaRE_W3_Eta_v2021.01

Model code and software

xWEI-Quantifying-the-extremeness-of-precipitation-across-scale Paul Voit https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6556463

Short summary

To better understand how the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events (HPEs) will change with changing climate and to adapt disaster risk management accordingly, we have to quantify the extremeness of HPEs in a reliable way. We introduce the xWEI (cross-scale WEI) and show that this index can reveal important characteristics of HPEs that would otherwise remain hidden. We conclude that the xWEI could be a valuable instrument in both disaster risk management and research.