Tropical cyclones and floods in Fiji

Abstract

Abstract Daily flow records, rainfall data and tropical cyclone maps during 1970–1998 are used to document the impact of tropical cyclones (TCs) on floods in the Rewa River system, Viti Levu, Fiji. Floods are large, brief, isolated events caused by TCs and non-TC tropical rainstorms. More floods are caused by tropical rainstorms than by TCs, but TC floods are larger. The log Pearson Type III distribution consistently provided the best fit to partial duration flood series and the widely-recommended generalized Pareto distribution performed very poorly, underscoring the need to test a variety of distributions for a particular geographic location. Tropical cyclones occur more often in Fiji during negative values of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and all TCs that occurred during El Niño conditions caused floods. Peak flood discharges caused by TCs are inversely correlated with the SOI, reflecting possible links with tropical cyclone frequency and precipitation intensity.