Nakagami Distribution for Modeling Monthly Precipitations in Van, Türkiye

Precipitation patterns are intricately influenced by geographic factors and local environmental conditions. Statistical distributions are one of the methods that help investigate precipitation characteristics at different sites. Van is a province that ranks among the provinces with the lowest precipitation in the Eastern Anatolia region of Türkiye, receiving an annual rainfall of around 400 mm. In this study, 63 years of monthly average precipitation data from Van, are modeled employing various well-known statistical distributions including the Nakagami distribution. The Nakagami distribution is one of the flexible distributions used in describing data from various fields. In estimating the parameters of the considered distributions maximum likelihood estimation method is utilized. Comparisons are made using various goodness of fit criteria including root mean squared error, coefficient of determination, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. According to the results, the Nakagami distribution is found to be the most suitable statistical distribution for modeling precipitations in Van province. Additionally, precipitation values for 10, 25, 50, and 100-year return periods are obtained.