Droughts and flooding rains at Manilla NSW were related in a way that is remarkable and unexpected.

Part III. Predicting drought from heavy rain

[Back to Part II: Scatter-plots]

The graph above is derived from the first graph in this series (copied here) by using the blue regression trend-line from the scatter plot of selected data (also copied here). (For data details, see Note 1, below.)

The equation of the trend line, y = 0.030x is used AS IF to use the daily rainfall excesses to predict the drought frequency five years later. The graph shows the “error” of this “prediction”. (In Note 2, below, I concede that this data set could not support such prediction.)
As expected from the previous graphs, the “prediction” is accurate at most data points to 1975. It is correct to the nearest percentage whole number at nine of the eighteen points. From 1940 to 1955, droughts are uniformly more frequent than predicted. After 1975, the error curve swings wildly up and down.

Could droughts have been predicted from heavy rainfalls?

By about 1915, it is conceivable that this relationship could have been discovered, either by analysis of such data, or by modelling of the climate system. Then, the data for the next 20 years, up to 1935, would seem to confirm it. Data from 1940 to 1955 would cause doubts, but data from 1960 to 1975 would restore confidence. Then the utter failure of the model in the following four decades would have led to its abandonment, at least for the time being.

Climate shifts of 1975

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Droughts and flooding rains at Manilla NSW were related in a way that is remarkable and unexpected.

Part II. Scatter-plots

[Back to Part I: Graphical logs]

I have made scatter plots to see how much correlation there is between the two data sets: the frequency % of severe 12-month drought and the total decadal daily rainfall excesses over 50 mm, when lagged five years. (For data details, see Note 1, below.)

A. The first 70% of the data

The first scatter-plot includes only the first 70% of the data, from 1890 to 1975, which showed matching patterns on the graphical log copied below. I have broken the data points into two groups: the aberrant group 1940 to 1955 (red) and the fourteen best-matched points (blue). The trend line that best fits those fourteen points is y = 0.028x + 0.407, with R-squared = 0.898. However, I have been able to fit the trend line y = 0.030x, that shows y proportional to x, without making R-squared worse than 0.892.
Similarly, the four decades centred on 1940, 1945, 1950 and 1955, had y = 0.050x, with R-squared equal to 0.902.

Expressed in words: for fourteen of the first eighteen data points, the frequency % of severe 12-month droughts remained close to 0.03 times the decade total of daily rainfall (>50 mm/day) measured five years earlier. For the other group of four adjacent points, the number was not 0.03, but 0.05.

B. All the data

The second scatter plot shows data for all 25 (five-year overlapped) decades. There is a “shot-gun” pattern, as expected. Continue reading →

Droughts and flooding rains at Manilla NSW were related in a way that is remarkable and unexpected.

Part 1. Graphical logs

As the first graph shows, for most of the 130-year record year-long droughts came in direct proportion to very heavy daily rainfall five years earlier. (For data details, see Note 1, below.)
The match between these two variables is astonishing. Both are based on rainfall readings, but they are scarcely related. Excessive daily rainfalls are transient extreme weather events; 12-month droughts are an aspect of climate.

Mackellar’s “Droughts and flooding rains”

Dorothea Mackellar’s famous line * is more apt for this graph than for other graphs where I use “flooding rains” to mean periods unlike drought. (See Note 2. below.) The rains and droughts that I plot here both bring hardship. Severe droughts lasting one year are among the worst of droughts: long enough to use up reserves, and not so long as to be eased by periods of rain. The daily rainfall events plotted are the ones that cause damaging floods.

Features of the graphical log

This second graph shows the data at the actual dates. Although the data points for the decade excess of heavy daily rainfall and those for frequency % of 12-month droughts have a matching pattern for much of the record, the pattern is offset. Heavy rainfall points come five years earlier than corresponding drought points. Notice that the heavy rainfalls do not (except in 1980) come squarely in gaps between droughts.
Lagging the rainfall points by five years (as in the first graph) makes some matches almost exact. Such matches occur at all data points from 1890 to 1975, except those from 1940 to 1955, where drought frequencies are relatively higher. Both variables show a two-decade-long, slow decline from 1905 to 1925. At the chosen scales, the amplitude of corresponding rises and falls are usually similar as well.
After 1975, daily rainfall oscillates through a wide amplitude with a twenty-year period, while the frequency % of drought varies Continue reading →