Abstract
Southern part of the Meghalaya Plateau is commonly known as a place with the highest annual rainfall in the world. The analysis of rainfall variability was carried out using data collected from tippet-bucket SEBA RG50 rain gauges which were located in Cherrapunji, Mawsynram and Pynursla between March and October of 2005. Annual rainfall totals in Mawsynram and Cherrapunjee were over 2000 mm higher than in Pynursla located 20 km east, closer to the interior of plateau. Increase of annual rainfall from east to west suggests that even higher rainfall amounts may be expected in areas west of Mawsynram – in the southern part of the Meghalaya Plateau. The analysis also shows that rainfall intensity was the highest in June and during the pre-monsoon season at all three sites. The diurnal rainfall pattern follows a distinct variation of peak rainfall at nighttime and minimum hourly rainfall between 15:00 and 20:00.
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Acknowledgments
Authors express gratitude to Prof. A. Walanus from Department of Geoinformatics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, who created software for rainfall parameters calculations.
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Gargol, D., Soja, R. (2016). Spatial and Temporal Variations of Rainfall in the Southern Part of the Meghalaya Plateau. In: Singh, R., Prokop, P. (eds) Environmental Geography of South Asia. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55741-8_7
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