1. Japan is a rainy country, not infrequently visited by heavy rainfalls. “Syûchugô-u” is rather a new word in Japanese with a special nuance which means rainfall characterized by its tremendous amount concentrated within a narrow limited area in a short interval of time.
Such a sort of rainfall is liable to cause a terrible damage for human living and activities, hence this subject becomes one of the most urgent problem in the field of applied meteorology and climatology in Japan.
In the previous studies (1967, 1968, 1970), the present author made clear the distribution and secular change of heavy rainfalls for the sixty years up to 1960. Before a full discussion in this paper, an exact definition of heavy rainfall is indispensable. In the first paper (1967), the writer adopted the occurrence number of heavy rainfalls whose daily amount exceeded 10% of the annual totals in the respective years. However, someone suggested him that this definition is too severe for the practical purposes and then it was altered to 5% of annual totals in the second paper. Notwithstanding, 5% is adequate in a case while in others 10% is more preferable according to circumstances and the . standard limit is by no means unique according to the purpose and aim of the study. For this reason, both are used in this paper as occasion demands and, for distinguishing them, those exceeding 5% of annual totals are called “heavy rainfall” and the others “extraordinarily rainfall”. At many places in Japan, the latter commonly occurred once in about twenty years while former was experienced once in about three to four years.
2. Heavy rainfall is most frequent in typhoon and Bai-u or the rainy season in early summer in Japan. For the determination of these two types, the following method is used. Taking the twenty years' record of monthly and daily rainfalls, number of heavy rainfalls that occurred in the earlier summer from May to July (A) and those from August to October (B) are reckoned. If (A) is significantly larger than (B), it is called Bai-u or earlier summer type and typhoon season or later summer type for the reversed case. A method of significant test at 20% level is applied for this judgement. For example, if (A) and (B) are 18 and 2 respectively among 20 occurrences, the difference is distinctly significant at 20% level. Generally the following frequency k is necessary for total number n to discern the significant difference between them at 20% level.
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When a difference between (A) and (B) is small, it is commonly insignificant and included in the mixed type. Fig. 1 shows the distribution pattern of these types. In entire Japan, the Baiuperiod type heavy rainfall spreads continuously in the western and northern part of Kyusyf and in western Chyugoku and also is scattered in limited areas in Hokuriku and Tosan (inland mountainous region from Gifu to Nagano Prefecture), while the typhoon period type develops in far wider regions.
3. Secular change of extraordinarily heavy rainfalls for the period of seventy years from 1901 to 1970 is examined. For this purpose the entire period is divided into seven equal intervals of ten years. In the next step, total sum of extraordinarily heavy rainfalls occurring at forty-one places in Japan are calculated as shown by the following series:
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For this time series, the secular trend is expressed by the trend index devised by E. Suzuki (1968).
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