Return periods of torrential rains for the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico

Abstract

A Gumbel function was applied in this research to an extreme precipitation database, of 140 weather stations from 1960–2002 periods and located in the state of Tamaulipas, México. The weather stations were positioned with a submetric precision GPS, where the information was analyzed in a geographic information systems (GIS) environment. The Z variables correspond to return period of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 and 100 years. The results show that the areas where it can be expected a maximum diary extreme precipitation was located in two portions in the south part of the state of Tamaulipas, one near to the coast in the Gulf of Mexico, in the municipalities of Soto La Marina and Aldama and the another one towards the Southwestern portion of the state in the municipalities of Ocampo, Antiguo Morelos, Nuevo Morelos, Llera, Xicoténcatll and Gómez Farías, which are considered zones of high risk due to the presence of extreme rain up to 335.4 in September and 407.3 mm at annual level.

Keywords

• Lluvias torrenciales
• Función Gumbel y periodo de retorno