Technical note on probabilistic assessment of one-step-ahead rainfall variation by Split Markov Process

Abstract. In this paper, Split Markov Process (SMP) is developed to assess one-step-ahead variation of daily rainfall at a rain gauge station. SMP is an advancement of general Markov Process (MP) and specially developed for probabilistic assessment of change in daily rainfall magnitude. The approach is based on a first-order Markov chain to simulate daily rainfall variation at a point through state/sub-state Transitional Probability Matrix (TPM). The state/sub-state TPM is based on the historical transitions from a particular state to a particular sub-state, which is the basic difference between SMP and general MP. In MP, the transition from a particular state to another state is investigated. However, in SMP, the daily rainfall magnitude is categorized into different states and change in magnitude from one temporal step to another is categorized into different sub-states for the probabilistic assessment of rainfall variation. The cumulative state/sub-state TPM is represented in a contour plot at different probability levels. The developed cumulative state/sub-state TPM is used to assess the possible range of rainfall in next time step, in a probabilistic sense. Application of SMP is investigated for daily rainfall at Khandwa station in the Nimar district of Madhya Pradesh, India. Eighty years of daily monsoon rainfall is used to develop the state/sub-state TPM and twenty years data is used to investigate its performance. It is observed that the predicted range of daily rainfall captures the actual observed rainfall with few exceptions. Overall, the assessed range, particularly the upper limit, provides a quantification possible extreme value in the next time step, which is very useful information to tackle the extreme events, such flooding, water logging etc.