Seasonal Change of the Diurnal Cycle of Precipitation over Japan and Malaysia

Abstract The diurnal cycle of precipitation is investigated using ground-based hourly observations for more than 10 years both in Japan and Malaysia. The diurnal cycle of precipitation in Japan is classified into three clusters. The first one has a peak in the morning, and the stations categorized into this cluster are located in coastal regions. The second cluster has two peaks in the morning and in the evening. These stations are located in an inland region. The morning peak in the above two clusters is dominant in June, when it is “baiu” in Japan. Baiu is the rainy season related to the southwest Asian monsoon. The third cluster is an exceptional case. No morning peak is observed in the stations of the third cluster and they have a comparatively strong evening peak. In the case of the Malay Peninsula, the inland region has a pronounced peak of rainfall at 1600 LST; the magnitude exceeds the mean of each month by 200%. This evening peak is too sharp to be represented by a 24-h-cycle sine wave decomposed...