Parametric models of rainfall temporal distribution at the Yabu meteorological station in Villa Clara province, Cuba

Obtaining patterns of rainfall temporal distribution through synthetic mass curves or hyetographs is a resource applied internationally to develop the design storm. In this paper, an analysis of 243 convective rainfall events of more than 25 mm that occurred in the Yabu meteorological station of Villa Clara province, Cuba in the period from 1989 to 2019, was carried out with the objective of elaborating the synthetic hyetographs characteristic of the station using Huff's method. The rainfall was classified and three types SC-T1, SC-T2, SC-T3 were identified according to the relationship between the duration of storm and the time where the highest intensities occur. The mass curves obtained for each probability of occurrence were expressed in dimensionless hyetographs, which were adjusted to the parametric models of Sherman, Wenzel and one model elaborated by the authors, which describe the distribution of the intensities with respect to time. This result allowed obtaining the intensity-frequency-duration curves for each type of storm, and each probability of occurrence. High Pearson correlation coefficients were achieved and the model developed by the authors showed the best performance. The results indicate that the dimensionless hyetographs obtained satisfactorily reflect the phenomenon of convective rainfall in the study location.