1:3.2.1 Monthly Maximum Half-Hour Rain

For each month, users provide the maximum half-hour rain observed over the entire period of record. These extreme values are used to calculate representative monthly maximum half-hour rainfall fractions.

Prior to calculating the representative maximum half-hour rainfall fraction for each month, the extreme half-hour rainfall values are smoothed by calculating three month average values:

$R_{0.5sm(mon)}=\frac{R_{0.5x(mon-1)}+R_{0.5x(mon)}+R_{0.5x(mon+1)}}{3}$ 1:3.2.1

where $R_{0.5sm(mon)}$ is the smoothed maximum half-hour rainfall for a given month (mm H$_2$O) and $R_{0.5x}$ is the extreme maximum half-hour rainfall for the specified month (mm H$_2$O). Once the smoothed maximum half-hour rainfall is known, the representative half-hour rainfall fraction is calculated using the equation:

$\alpha_{0.5mon}=adj_{0.5\alpha}*[1-exp(\frac{R_{0.5sm(mon)}}{{\mu_{mon}}*ln*(\frac{0.5}{yrs*days_{wet}})})]$ 1:3.2.2

where $\alpha_{0.5mon}$ is the average half-hour rainfall fraction for the month, $adj_{0.5\alpha}$ is an adjustment factor, $R_{0.5sm}$ is the smoothed half-hour rainfall amount for the month (mm H$_2$O), $\mu_{mon}$ is the mean daily rainfall (mm H$_2$O) for the month, $yrs$ is the number of years of rainfall data used to obtain values for monthly extreme half-hour rainfalls, and $days_{wet}$ are the number of wet days in the month. The adjustment factor is included to allow users to modify estimations of half-hour rainfall fractions and peak flow rates for runoff.