A new precipitation index for the spatiotemporal distribution of drought and flooding in the reaches of the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers and related characteristics of atmospheric circulation

摘要

Characteristics of the spatiotemporal distributions of precipitation anomalies in the reaches of the Yangtze River and Huaihe River (YHR) were studied using EOF method. Four main precipitation patterns for the YHR in summer identified by the first two modes: a region-wide flood over the entire YHR (RWF); a region-wide drought over the entire YHR (RWD); a flood in the south with a drought in the northern region of the Yangtze River (FS-DN); and a drought in the south with a flood in the northern region of the Yangtze River (DS-FN). Based on the first two modes and the actual precipitation departure percentage, a new precipitation index is defined in this paper. The typical flood/drought years associated with the various rainfall patterns defined by this precipitation index are more representative and closer to reality compared to some existing precipitation indexes which just use the area-mean precipitation or the EOF time components individually.