Daily rainfall patterns at Melbourne

Days during the 107 years 1859-1965 have been classified as either wet or dry with respect to the rainfall recor ded at Melbourne. The paper analyses the hypothesis that the resulting pattern can be adequafely fitted (if not explained) by a first-order Markov chain model, in which the probability of a day being dry depends on time of year and on the state of the previous day, but is not further influenced by the state of earlier days. The model is shown to fit reasonably well the observed patterns of behaviour in three-day intervals, in spells of consecutive dry days, in spells of consecutive wet days, and in dry-wet cycles. The conclusions are in general agreement with the work of Gabriel and Neumann for Tel Aviv winter rainfall.