This study investigates the direct influence of urban areas on storm events (heavy rainfall above 17 mm/hr). An 11‐year climatology of summertime precipitation was performed to capture and describe storm events for Berlin, Germany. An hourly radar composite product from the German Weather Service with a 1‐km grid resolution was used for the analysis. Berlin was chosen due to the relatively modest influences of topography and distinct urban‐rural landscape heterogeneity potentially affecting storms. The analysis identified 96 storm events for the period from 2006 to 2016. Individual storm characteristics were evaluated before the city (upwind), over the city, and behind the city (downwind). Both visual and statistical estimations quantified storm modifications caused by the urban area. Around 60% of the events showed typical patterns of storm alteration by the city. In conformance to earlier studies, we found evidence of urban rainfall intensification about 20 to 50 km downwind of the urban center. Most storms were suppressed, deflected, or split by the city, whereas intensification over the city typically occurred at night or when storms formed over the city. In the present study, results indicate an urban influence on storms in and around Berlin. But, unlike other studies, downwind intensification of storm rainfall was not a typical feature. This study on urban rainfall modification marks one of the first observations‐based climatological assessments for the European region.
The number of global open-source hydrometeorological datasets and models is large and growing. However, with a constantly growing demand for services and tools from stakeholders, not only in the water sector, we still lack simple solutions, which are easy to use for nonexperts. The new R package incorporates the BROOK90 hydrologic model and global open-source datasets used for parameterization and forcing. The aim is to estimate the vertical water fluxes within the soil–water–plant system of a single site or of a small catchment (<100 km2). This includes data scarce regions where no hydrometeorological measurements or reliable site characteristics can be obtained. The end-user only needs to provide a location and the desired period. The package automatically downloads the necessary datasets for elevation (Amazon Web Service Terrain Tiles), land cover (Copernicus: Land Cover 100 m), soil characteristics (ISRIC: SoilGrids250), and meteorological forcing (Copernicus: ERA5 reanalysis). Subsequently these datasets are processed, specific hydrotopes are created, and BROOK90 is applied. In a last step, the output data of all desired variables on a daily scale as well as time-series plots are stored. A first daily and monthly validation based on five catchments within various climate zones shows a decent representation of soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and runoff components. A considerably better performance is achieved for a monthly scale.
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