Estimating tropical cyclone precipitation risk in Texas

Abstract

This paper uses a new rainfall algorithm to simulate the long-term tropical cyclone precipitation (TCP) climatology in Texas based on synthetic tropical cyclones generated from National Center for Atmospheric Research/National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis data from 1980 to 2010. The synthetic TCP climatology shows good agreement with the available observations with respect to TCP return periods, especially for daily and event TCP. Areas within 200 km of the coast have higher TCP risk with two hot spots located near Houston and Corpus Christi. Based on this technique, there are locations in Texas where a TCP event > 1000 mm has a return period of 500 years and a TCP event > 1400 mm has a return period of 1000 years. There is a high degree of spatial heterogeneity in TCP risk in central Texas due to the topography.