Twenty centimeters of precipitation fell in one day on a southern city in the 100 years climatic records were kept in this city.This rainfall event ranked 5th among all one day precipitation events for this city.The return period for this extreme rainfall event would be

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The return period is the average time between occurrences of an extreme event. If this rainfall event ranked 5th among all one day precipitation events for this city, it means that there were at least 4 other one day precipitation events in the past that were greater than 20 centimeters. Therefore, the return period for this extreme rainfall event would be longer than 4 years and 5 years. Between 20 years and 100 years, it is more likely that the return period for this extreme rainfall event is closer to 20 years than to 100 years, since there were only 100 years of climatic records kept in this city. Hence, the best choice is C.

Twenty Centimeters of Precipitation Fell in One Day on a Southern