Rafter et al. (2026) Trends in Annual Maximum Sub‐Daily to Daily Precipitation Over Australia

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-04-10
• Authors: Tony Rafter, Andrew D. King, TP Lane
• DOI: 10.1029/2025jd044650

Research Groups

Not specified in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study evaluates trends in annual and seasonal maxima of sub-daily precipitation accumulations (1 to 24 hours) across Australia, revealing increasing hourly rainfall trends, particularly in austral summer, but decreasing trends at longer sub-daily durations and in austral autumn.

Objective

• To evaluate trends in annual and seasonal maxima of sub-daily precipitation accumulations (from 1 to 24 hours) over regions of Australia.
• To assess the sensitivity of these trends to the choice of start and end years and to different time scales (hourly vs. daily).
• To identify seasonal variations in sub-daily precipitation trends.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Regions of Australia.
• Temporal Scale: Sub-daily (1 to 24 hours) precipitation accumulations; annual and seasonal maxima; trends evaluated over periods longer than approximately 25 years.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Trend analysis (no specific climate or hydrological models mentioned for data generation).
• Data sources: Quality-controlled sub-daily precipitation gauge data set over Australia.

Main Results

• Station-based trends in sub-daily precipitation are sensitive to the chosen start and end years, but trends over periods longer than approximately 25 years show greater stability.
• Hourly annual maximum rainfall trends are increasing across most periods and regions of Australia.
• As accumulation durations increase towards daily time scales (e.g., 24 hours), the observed trends become smaller or even negative.
• Seasonally, the largest increasing national-average trends at hourly duration are found in the austral summer (December-January-February), a period prone to thunderstorms.
• In contrast, the austral autumn (March-April-May) exhibits strongly decreasing trends across all sub-daily durations, consistent with observed reductions in mean rainfall over eastern Australia.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive, gauge-based analysis of sub-daily precipitation trends across Australia, addressing a critical gap in understanding extreme rainfall changes.
• Demonstrates the duration-dependency of precipitation trends, showing increasing intensity at hourly scales but decreasing or smaller trends at longer sub-daily durations.
• Highlights significant seasonal variability in sub-daily precipitation trends, linking them to regional atmospheric conditions and mean rainfall changes.

Funding

Not specified in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Rafter2026Trends,
  author = {Rafter, Tony and King, Andrew D. and Lane, TP},
  title = {Trends in Annual Maximum Sub‐Daily to Daily Precipitation Over Australia},
  journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2025jd044650},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025jd044650}
}