CoRain: A free and open source software for rain series comparison

Abstract

A good climatic analysis requires accurate and homogeneous daily precipitation series; unluckily, inhomogeneity is frequently found and have to be considered, especially when it is due to non-climatic parameters. CoRain is a free and open source software written in R language that could greatly help analyzing inhomogeneity caused by rainfall measuring instruments. CoRain compares two parallel rain series (with an overlapping period) and tries to highlight overestimations and underestimations due to rain gauges in a specific condition, so that the user can consider it for future analysis. CoRain offers many information on the two analyzed series, starting with cleaning input data, comparing them and classifying rainy days by severity. CoRain is a cross-platform software, easily adaptable to different needs, that takes in input a single text file with daily information of the two rain series and outputs tables (in CSV format) and plots (as PNG images) that help in the interpretation of the data. Use of the program is very simple: the execution can be either interactive or non-interactive. CoRain code has been tested on different rain series in the Piedmont region (northwestern Italy), showing its importance in identifying climate variations and instrumentation errors.