Abstract:Using hourly rainfall record of 61 meteorological stations in Jiangsu province, the characteristics of diurnal variation of rainfall is analyzed, including the characteristics of diurnal variation of the hourly extreme precipitation and levels of daily precipitation. The results are as follow. There are two peaks of diurnal variation of precipitation over Jiangsu province during summer. However, the diurnal phase of major peak exhibits regional differences. In the field of accumulated precipitation amount (hereafter as APA) and precipitation frequency, the peak between early morning and morning is much more remarkable over northern Jiangsu province than over the southern part. The APA of long-duration precipitation event amounts to about two-thirds of total precipitation. Also the proportion over the northern Jiangsu is larger than that over the southern part, and peaks always appear during early morning and morning. The short-duration events over northern part have two peaks:the major one is during afternoon and evening, and the minor one is during early moring and moring. However, the short-duration events over southern part provides only one peak during afternoon and evening. The thresholds of hourly extreme precipitation are larger (smaller) over northern (southern) part of Jiangsu, and the peaks always happen in the morning (afternoon and evening) in the northern (southern) part. Although the frequency of hourly extreme precipitation is negligible, but the APA is about 40% of total precipitaion. Major peaks of hourly precipitation occur in the afternoon to evening, and its two peaks of diurnal variation is just like the total precipiation. Besides, diurnal variations for each level of daily precipitation are different, but the distribution in Jiangsu is similar. The APA mainly comes from heavy rain and torrential rain. The frequency and APA of the torrential rain both have peaks in the morning.