Diurnal course of rainfall in the plain of Friuli-Venezia Giulia: Evaluation of hourly measurements

The paper describes some characteristics of the precipitation patterns in t he plain of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Even if small, this Region shows a compl ex rainfall pattern so that, by previous studies, it was divided into four distinct areas with peculiar pluviometric regimes, namely the Coastal Area, the Plain and Hills Area, the Prealpine Area and the Inner Alpine Area. No wadays a new data set, collected by the ERSA/CSA automatic stations, allows to propose a new sub-classification of the Coastal Area and Plain and Hill s Area, under the point of view of the hourly rate of precipitation. This n ew sub-classification is composed by five zones: the Coast, the Carso, the Low Plain, the Middle Plain and the Piedmont. Each one of these zones prese nts a peculiar seasonal behaviour of the hourly rain-rate.