Intense rainfall and flood event classification by weather type

The influence of different weather types on intense rainfall and flood discharge is studied. Data from Western Greece are analysed, through a weather type classification that has been widely used in Greece. The probability of occurrence of intense rainfall events and flood events, conditional on the prevailing weather type, are calculated. Also, the statistics of the event characteristics are extracted and analysed through statistical tests and analysis of variance. The analyses show that there exist statistically significant differences in the probability of occurrence of an intense rainfall and flood event. However, the weather type concept does not explain significant portion of the variance of the event characteristics, such as rainfall duration, total depth, intensity, and discharge volume.