Daily precipitation variations of selected meteorological stations in Turkey

The amount of precipitation mostly depends on geographical conditions and planetary factors. In Turkey, topographic properties i. e. altitude, aspect, direction of mountain ranges and continentality conditions are responsible for the distribution of precipitation. In the selected some meteorological stations, there are great seasonal differences in amount of precipitation according to geographical region of Turkey. In the every meteorological station, the rainy day numbers and amount of annual precipitations change in a great extent year by year. The differences between the amount of the minimum and maximum precipitation attains three fold. For example, annual minimum and maximum precipitation changes between 600-1891 mm at Antalya, 361-1050 mm at Izmir. The trend of seasonal, annual precipitation and changing of rainy day numbers are remarkable. In the recent years, rainless day numbers have increased in the southern part of Anatolia. But generally rainless day numbers have getting decreased in the northern part of Anatolia. Other important situation, there is a decrease trend in the normal rainfall categories when the heavy rainfall categories have increased in the Mediterranean climatic conditions. Therefore, daily rainfall amounts are in increasing trends. The increases of heavy rainfall have led to torrential floods causing heavy causalities in the area. The changes in the amount of annual precipitation play an important role in the environment assessments. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of The 2nd International Geography Symposium-Mediterranean Environment