[1] Earlier reports indicated some specific isolated regions exhibiting a paradoxical increase of extreme rainfall in spite of decrease in the totals. Here, we conduct a coherent study of the full-scale of daily rainfall categories over a relatively large subtropical region-the Mediterranean-in order to assess whether this paradoxical behavior is real and its extent. We show that the torrential rainfall in Italy exceeding 128 mm/d has increased percentage-wise by a factor of 4 during 1951 -1995 with strong peaks in El-Nino years. In Spain, extreme categories at both tails of the distribution (light: 0-4 mm/d and heavy/torrential: 64 mm/d and up) increased significantly. No significant trends were found in Israel and Cyprus. The consequent redistribution of the daily rainfall categories -torrential/heavy against the moderate/light intensities -is of utmost interest particularly in the semi-arid sub-tropical regions for purposes of water management, soil erosion and flash floods impacts. INDEX TERMS: 1854

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