Precipitation regionalization of Kurdistan province using multivariate statistical methods

For precipitation regionalization of Kurdistan province and access to a suitable pattern in this context, annual precipitation of 83 stations are collected for a period of 30 years (1978 2007) from Applied Meteorological Research Centre of Kurdistan Province. Using rotated PCA approach by Varimax method showed that approximates 86.75 percent of annual precipitation variations of Kurdistan province can be explained by 7 components. The result of PCA used as an entrance of cluster analysis with Ward’s technique and it was distinguished that Kurdistan province has 3 different precipitation regions called west region with high precipitation, central region medium precipitation and east region with low precipitation region. Region East with it,s low precipitation is the biggest precipitation one in the Kurdistan province that Annual mean precipitations is about 368.7 mm. The central region with medium precipitation region is the second large region of precipitation. Annual mean precipitation of this region is about 537.7 mm. Western high precipitation region is the smallest region of precipitation and at the same time it is the wettest region of precipitation in Kurdistan province. The annual mean precipitation of this region is about 706 mm.