Parsimonious modelling of winter season rainfall incorporating reanalysis climatological data.

Several Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP) models are developed to describe winter season rainfall with parsimonious parameter use. We propose a methodology for determining the best form of seasonal model for fine-scale rainfall within a MMPP framework. Of those proposed here, a model with a fixed transition rate is shown to be superior over the other MMPP models considered. The model is expanded to include covariate data for sea-level air pressure, relative humidity, and temperature using reanalysis data over 14 years from the coordinates covering the Bracknell rainfall collection site in England. Results are compared using the likelihood ratio test and the second-order properties of aggregated rainfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]