Analysis of Rainfall in Tampa

• Main Author: Amy Polen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of South Florida 2017-09-01
• Series: Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two
• Online Access: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/ujmm/vol8/iss1/4/

Rainfall for a region is very important to define, because it affects an ecosystem health, wildlife, and even human behavior. Using data obtained from National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the Tampa Bay International Airport and graphing it, the total rainfall for a year was estimated by both a rough trapezoidal Riemann’s sum approximation and a definite integral generated by polynomial regression. It was determined that both approximations gave an underestimate of the total rainfall that was measured, but the polynomial integral gave a reasonable estimate with a small percent error. It was seen through the graphical representation of this data and the overall recorded total rainfall that indeed it did match the humid subtropical climate type of Tampa, with a spike in rainfall in the summer and precipitation amount that matched the Köppen climate classification system for this climate type. In guiding future measurements of rain it is useful to use a trendline to predict rainfall over a given period of time.