A Comparison of Different Station Data on Revealing the Characteristics of Extreme Hourly Precipitation Over Complex Terrain: The Case of Zhejiang, China

Abstract Both long‐term but small number of national stations and short‐term but large number of regional stations have been frequently used to study the extreme hourly precipitation (EXHP) in China. However, few studies focus on the differences of the two for revealing the features of EXHP. In this study, the characteristics of EXHP in Zhejiang Province are investigated using three rainfall data sets at three threshold criteria. The comparison between different data sets shows that increasing the station density can better reflect the climatic spatial distribution of EXHP thresholds if long‐term data is absent. The majority of EXHP can be classified into four weather types: the southwesterly wind type (30.7%–48.5%), the trough type (12.2%–23.6%), the tropical cyclone (TC) type (11.4%–17.5%) and the easterly wind type (4.9%–17.9%). The selection of stations is more sensitive to the proportions of the four weather types than the statistical years and threshold criteria. The monthly and diurnal variations of EXHP, as well as their differences revealed by the three data sets, are varied by weather type. Only using national stations cannot distinguish the spatial differences between the TC type and the easterly wind type, and there is an underestimation for southwesterly wind type and trough type in the mountainous area of southwest Zhejiang. The statistical year and station height are the main reasons for the differences in the duration of EXHP events calculated by different data sets, with the TC type having the largest effect and the southwesterly wind type the smallest