Precipitation Characteristics of Brno and Surroundings in the 2015–2016 Period: Case Study of Crowdsourcing in Meteorology

Analyses of precipitation characteristics of Brno and surroundings were carried out with datasets predominantly from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) and the Brno waterworks and sewerages networks (BWS). Amateur or institutional precipitation stations were also utilized. The overall number of 41 stations was processed. Firstly, quality control of all the data was treated which reduced the number of stations to 31. Time series of precipitation totals during various intervals (5, 10, 60 minutes and 6, 24 hours) were used to demonstrate spatiotemporal variability and precipitation intensity. Results confirmed uneven distribution of summer half-year precipitation totals and the role of geographical distance on its spatial homogeneity. Moreover, the highest number of precipitation days occurred north-easterly from Brno. Single extreme precipitation events considerably affected spatial pattern. Finally, most of the stations could be successfully added to current network of the CHMI stations in order to gain finer resolution of precipitation data. (Abstract).