A Statistic Useful for Characterizing Probability Distributions, with Application to Rain Rate Data

A dimensionless statistic is presented which can be used to test if a sample did not come from a parent population with an assumed distribution. As an example, this statistic is calculated for radar and point rain rate data from the Global Atmospheric Research Program's Atlantic Tropical Experiment, and shows that the data are probably neither exponentially nor lognormally distributed. The daily values of the statistic are surprisingly constant.