Temporary space variability of precipitation in Guarico state, Venezuela

The knowledge of the spatial distribution of rainfall is fundamental to understand precipitation regimes and to classify areas according to the similarity between neighboring rainfall stations; which might constitute a first approximation to divide the geographical space in areas with similar agro-ecological patterns. The objective of this work was to analyze the variability space-patterns of the precipitation by analyzing monthly and annual average data from 1971 to 2000 of meteorological stations of Guarico state and its surroundings. The series of records underwent an exploratory data analysis (EDA) using the statistical program JMP v.6.0. It was performed analysis of correlation of rainfall with longitude, latitude and altitude. For the spatial analysis it was used geostatistics and interpolation with the Ordinary Kriging (OK) method; this allowed generating maps of the spatial distribution of precipitation in Arcview GIS v.3.2. The study allowed characterizing in the period 1970-2000 its variability and spatial distribution, where typical behavior was the marked seasonality (well defined rainy season and dry period) and the trend in general presented a pattern of spatial distribution that showed a gradation from lowest to highest in direction northeast-southeast, which puts in evidence the remarkable influence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone of the trade winds of the NE and SE, finding this influence in the south area of Guarico state.