Publication Date

5-1999

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Michael Trapasso, Stuart Foster, Nicholas Crawford, Glen Conner

Comments

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Degree Program

Department of Geography and Geology

Degree Type

Master of Science

Abstract

The amount of heavy precipitation and flash flooding that occurs in middle Tennessee is an ongoing forecast problem for National Weather Service meteorologists. The need for better ways to recognize heavy precipitation potential has resulted in the development of a heavy precipitation climatology. This research provides much needed statistical results involving monthly and yearly precipitation averages and normal and identification of the spatial distribution of heavy precipitation across middle Tennessee.

The main purpose of this research was to determine whether different types of meteorological processes generate differing types of heavy precipitation. Three inch precipitation amounts in middle Tennessee in a 24-hour period constituted a heavy precipitation event. Cooperative station data for 45 stations across middle Tennessee were used to analyze daily precipitation data from 1961-1990. The heavy precipitation events that occurred were categorized as either Synoptic, Frontal, Meso-High or Tropical. NOAA Daily Weather Maps were used to categorize these events by analysis of the surface and 500 millibar upper air patterns. There were 246 heavy precipitation events covering 322 days. Six null and alternative hypotheses were developed to test the spatial distribution of heavy precipitation. The heavy precipitation events were statistically tested using an f- test and a two sample t-test for independent samples. The t-test was performed to determine the spatial distribution of heavy precipitation across middle Tennessee. Results gained from this study included the determination that there were spatial differences in the heavy precipitation. The Synoptic, Frontal and Tropical events had differing amounts of heavy precipitation, while Meso-High precipitation was more variable with widely scattered heavy precipitation amounts. The results from this research will provide National Weather Service forecasters with statistical results that will help with heavy precipitation pattern recognition. Further application of the statistical results will be the development and improvement of National Weather Service Hydrologic forecast models.

Disciplines

Earth Sciences | Geography | Meteorology | Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology | Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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