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Seasonal changes of the diurnal variation of precipitation in the upper Río Chagres basin, Panamá

2019; Public Library of Science; Volume: 14; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1371/journal.pone.0224662

1932-6203

Tosiyuki Nakaegawa, Reinhardt Pinzón, José Fábrega, Johnny A. Cuevas, Hector A. De Lima, Eric Cordoba, Keisuke Nakayama, Josue Ivan Batista Lao, Alcely Lau Melo, Diego Arturo Gonzalez, Shoji Kusunoki,

Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations

This study elucidated the characteristics of climatological seasonal changes in the diurnal variations of precipitation at four ground stations in the upper Río Chagres basin in the Panama Canal watershed. The seasonal changes differed among the stations, although they are located within an area of only 414 km2. Precipitation peaks in the early afternoon at 1500 local standard time (LST) were observed at all the stations. At Chamon, monthly-mean hourly precipitation at every hour exceeded 0.3 mm h–1 throughout November and December. The occurrence of morning precipitation in January and March distinguished the seasonal precipitation pattern at Esperanza from the pattern at the other stations. Analyses of the seasonal changes in the diurnal variation with pattern correlations and rotational empirical orthogonal functions grouped the stations into two pairs: no morning peak at Chico and Río Piedras in the downstream basin and morning peak at Chamon and Esperanza in the upstream basin.