A sunny day with a bit of a breeze sounds like ideal weather for most people. Rainy days, on the other hand, are less welcome. Yet rain is vital for us and our environment: it cleans the air and cools it down; plants depend on it to survive in times of climate change. Heavy precipitation including the risk of flooding cannot be extracted from the long-term distribution measured here. Nevertheless, averages may contribute important information that is relevant, for example, to calculations regarding the transport of pollutants that are directly released into the water bodies outside the city centre via rainwater drains.
Information on the volume and distribution of rain can also be used to determine the runoff, i.e. the ability of soil to absorb water or allow it to drain away. The long-term means of precipitation distribution therefore also form an important statistical base for the calculation of water balance maps.
