EFFECTIVE FRACTAL DIMENSION AND CORRECTIONS TO THE MEAN OF ANNUAL MAXIMA

Given a time series of daily rainfall totals, it is recognized that the maximum daily value is, in general, lower than the true 24 h maximum. Thus, annual maximum series under-represent the extreme events, and correction factors are therefore required to convert them to their 24 h counterparts. The phenomenon is generalized and examined by reference to UK time series for rainfall, wind speed and air temperature, resulting in mean correction factors of 1.167, 1.099 and 1.036, respectively. For air temperature, the result is influenced by the choice of datum. In general, such correction factors are unavailable, and so the effective fractal dimension, d, of the data is investigated as a means through which to predict them; the correlation found is promising.