Database of design storms in Finland

Data tables

Design storms can be used for example when planning urban runoff structures or as precipitation data in hydrological models. The database of design storms is based on radar measurements from Finland in 2013–2016 and extreme rain areas derived therefrom. In contrast to commonly used design storms with simple variation patterns in time (e.g. a triangle), the real momentary variations in intensity are shown in these present cases. The database contains heavy precipitation events whose statistical return period is up to three years. The table below shows several examples. The entire numerical data can be downloaded as an Excel file and all the hyetographs as PNG images.

Please select the duration of the accumulation period:

Examples of design storms with an accumulation period of 5 minutes. Start time, location (longitude and latitude), total precipitation, duration and return period are stated for each design storm. The momentary rain intensity, interpolated with storm motion into 1-minute intervals can be obtained by downloading the entire material. Clicking on the images of the examples will increase their size.

Download all 5-minute precipitation PNG images as a ZIP file.

Examples of design storms with an accumulation period of 5 minutes

Time

[yyyymmddHHMM]

Lon WGS84 Lat WGS84

Precipitation

P (mm)

Duration

(min)

Return period

(a)

Image

Y: Precipitation/min, X: Time

201608231443 22.8 60.5 20.6 5 100 5min-201608231443 mitoitussade pylväskaavio.
201407171507 24.6 64.4 9.6 5 50 5min-201407171507 mitoitussade pylväskaavio.
201407191054 28.9 60.4 8.9 5 10 5min-201407191054 mitoitussade pylväskaavio.
201307251433 21.9 62.2 6.7 5 5 5min-201307251433 mitoitussade pylväskaavio.
201505211609 27.4 64.8 6.1 5 3 5min-201505211609 mitoitussade pylväskaavio.

References: [1], [2], [3]

  • Rimpiläinen, L. 2017. Mitoitussateiden muotokirjasto. Diplomityö. (Selection of radar based design storms. Master's thesis. Abstract in English.) Aalto-yliopisto, Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu. Espoo. 49 s. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201704133569
  • Suomen rakennusinsinöörien liitto RIL. 2004. Vesihuolto II. Suomen rakennusinsinöörien liitto, RIL 124-2-2004, Helsinki. 682 s. ISBN951-758-438-5
  • Aaltonen, J., Hohti, H., Jylhä, K., Karvonen, T., Kilpeläinen, T., Koistinen, J., Kotro, J., Kuitunen, T., Ollila, M., Parvio, A., Pulkkinen, S., Silander, J., Tiihonen, T., Tuomenvirta, H. & Vadja, A. 2008. Rankkasateet ja taajamatulvat (RATU). (Heavy rains and floods in urban areas. Abstract in English.) ympäristökeskus, Helsinki. Suomen ympäristö 31/2008, Luonnonvarat. 123 s. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/38381

Publishers

  • The content is produced as part of the URCLIM project co-funded by the European Union ERA4CS.