Annual Rainfall in Pernambuco, Brazil: Regionalities, Regimes, and Time Trends

Precipitação Anual em Pernambuco, Brasil: Regionalidades, Regimes e Tendência Temporal

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the homogeneous zones, the regimes, and the local trends for annual and seasonal rainfall in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. We collected seasonal and annual data on monthly rainfall from 45 weather stations in Pernambuco from 1987 to 2019. The data were organized yearly to identify the homogeneous rainfall zones based on Euclidean distance and Ward's coefficient. The mean annual value of each zone was calculated and the data were subjected to descriptive statistics analysis, analysis of rainfall regime with the Rain Anomaly Index, and time trend analysis using the Mann-Kendall method. The results show three homogeneous rainfall zones: 1 (semiarid), 2 (transition), and 3 (coastal), with mean values for annual rainfall of 562, 1032, and 1812 mm year^-1, respectively. The precipitation regime showed the predominance of dry years as zones 1, 2, and 3 exhibited dry periods of 18, 17, and 15 years, respectively. Time trend analysis revealed a decrease in annual rainfall of 48.7 mm for Zone 1, 13.2 mm for Zone 2, and 204.4 mm for Zone 3, without statistical significance. Seasonal analysis demonstrated that Zone 1 presented a negative trend in the spring and a positive trend in Zone 2 in the summer, indicating changes in the rain seasonality.

Keywords
cluster analysis; Mann-Kendall; Rain Anomaly Index