Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 9 4 2009 10.5194/nhess-9-1161-2009 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1161/2009/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1161/2009/nhess-9-1161-2009.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1161/2009/nhess-9-1161-2009.pdf 1161 1173 2009-07-17 Application of the Hess-Brezowsky classification to the identification of weather patterns causing heavy winter rainfall in Brittany (France) O. Planchon olivier.planchon@uhb.fr H. Quénol N. Dupont S. Corgne COSTEL Laboratory, LETG – UMR 6554 CNRS, Rennes-2 University, Place Recteur Henri le Moal, 35043 Rennes Cedex, France An accurate knowledge of the weather patterns causing winter rainfall over the Scorff watershed in western Brittany (W. France) was developed prior to studies of the impact of the climate factor on land use management, and of the hydrological reponses to rain-producing weather patterns. These two studies are carried out in the context of the climate change. The identification of rainy air-circulation types was realized using the objective computational version of the 29-type Hess and Brezowsky Grosswetterlagen system of classifying European synoptic regimes, for the cold season (November-March) of the 1958–2005 period at the reference weather station of Lorient, and 13 other stations located in western and southern Brittany, including a more detailed study for the wet 2000–2001 cold season for three reference stations of the Scorff watershed (Lorient, Plouay and Plouray). The precipitation proportion (including the days with rainfall ≥20 mm) was calculated by major air-circulation type (GWT: see Appendix A) and by individual air-circulation subtype (GWL: see Appendix A) for the studied time-period. 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