Spectral Analysis of Annual Time Series of Mountain Precipitation

by Christopher J. Duffy, Pennsylvania State Univ, University Park, United States,
Ying Fan, Pennsylvania State Univ, University Park, United States,
Upmanu Lall, Pennsylvania State Univ, University Park, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Hydraulics/Hydrology of Arid Lands (H?AL)

Abstract:

In this paper we examine the statistical moments of long record, annual, precipitation time series for 19 west facing stations along the Wasatch Front, northern Utah. The mean, variance, autocorrelation, and spectrum for each series, along with the time scale of fluctuation, are estimated and compared. Although it is well known that mean precipitation in the Wasatch is positively correlated with altitude (Peck and Brown, 1962), the objective of this study is to determine whether an orographic relationship also exists for the variance, covariance, and spectral distributions as well. This study is an initial effort to catalog space-time variability of hydrologic processes in mountainous terrain.

Subject Headings: Time series analysis | Precipitation | Mountains | Statistics | Terrain | Meteorology | Hydrology | Utah | United States

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