Weekly Precipitation Cycles along the Northeast Corridor?

Abstract

Twenty years of precipitation data from seven cities along or near the east coast of the United States from the northern mid-Atlantic region to northern New England have been analyzed to determine if there are any weekly cycles in either daily precipitation frequency or intensity. Any such weekly cycle could be considered evidence of anthropogenic influence on the climate of that region. Data were examined for each individual site and for all sites combined. The data were subjected to various statistical procedures, including one-way analysis of variance, Student's t-test, and the chi-square goodness-of-fit test. Overall, results were not significant at the 95% confidence level. Thus, this study is unable to detect any weekly cycle in daily precipitation intensity or frequency.