Characteristics of summer hourly precipitation under different urbanization background in central China

The relationship between sub-daily precipitation and urbanization is widely concerned because short-term precipitation is sensitive to urbanization and difficult to predict. Using the data of summer hourly precipitation and urban development during 2007–2019 at four urban stations and an atmospheric background monitoring station in central China, this study investigates the characteristics of hourly precipitation and hourly extreme precipitation (HEP) under different urbanization background. It is found that high urbanization level may benefit precipitation intensity but not for accumulated precipitation amount and precipitation frequency, and it is also conducive to the occurrence of hourly precipitation within [20, 50) mm. Precipitation amount and frequency for hourly precipitation within [5, 50) mm have similar diurnal variation at fixed station, yet the diurnal variation of precipitation intensity is insignificant. The differences in temporal variation of precipitation are related to urbanization and terrain. Both high urbanization level and speed are conducive to summer HEP; especially summer HEP intensity may increase gradually under sustainable urbanization development. Although growth-type HEP occurs frequently with main contribution to total HEP precipitation amount in central China regardless of urbanization level, the frequency and contribution of continuous-type HEP tends to increase under high urbanization level and speed.