A Joint-Probability Model for Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Hazard Assessment

Abstract

Rainfall hazards from tropical cyclones (TCs) have been emphasized in recent research. A physics-based TC rainfall model (TCR) has been developed and used in TC rainfall hazard assessment. In this study, we develop a joint-probability-method (JPM) for TC rainfall hazard assessment. The JPM method is inspired by the finding that three TC-related parameters - maximum intensity when the storm is near the point of interest (POI), duration of the storm, and the minimal distance between the storm center and POI - are most important to the hazard curve estimated by TCR. It is found that the JPM method can capture the probability feature of rainfall hazard in different locations in the United States relatively well. The necessity of using all three parameters for the probability assignment is explored, and it is shown that the JPM methods using only one or two parameters are inferior to the method using all three important parameters. Finally, the possible application of the JPM method in climate change or climate variability study is discussed.