Published Paper Details:

Rainfall is one of the most important factors among the Climatic elements, and its distribution differs from time to time, season to season and place to place., which determines the Cropping pattern of an area. In India, the farmers mainly depend on monsoon season for agricultural practices. southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon together serves maximum rainfall to the nation. The present study deals with the rainfall characteristics of Cuddalore district which includes the spatial distribution of rainfall, rainfall variability and precipitation ratio, these three studies are most important in Rainfall analysis. Through rainfall variability study can be identified how rainfall varies from its mean, at the same time the precipitation ratio gives the abnormality of rainfall distribution. For this study 30 consecutive years (1985-2014) monthly rainfall data were collected and analyzed from 14 rain gauge stations. The long-term rainfall analysis reveals the gradual changes of rainfall of the study area. The long term mean annual rainfall of the study area is 1119.63mm, the maximum long-term mean annual rainfall recorded at Annamalai Nagar with 1388.68mm whereas minimum mean annual rainfall has been distributed over Lakkur with 900.74mm. In terms of mean seasonal rainfall of the study area northeast monsoon was received maximum amount of rainfall with 647.71mm followed by southwest monsoon, summer and winter season with rainfall 334.26mm, 95.52mm and 46.14mm respectively. The annual rainfall variability of the region is 40.06%. it varies from 62.40% to 32.17. maximum rainfall variability occurs during winter season and minimum variability experiences during northeast monsoon with 189.29% and 61.40% respectively. The high rainfall abnormality (639.33%) prevails during winter season whereas northeast monsoon season study area under very less (217.03%) abnormality.