A COMPARISON OF PRECIPITATION AND

The main goal of this study was to compare the precipitation and runoff seasonalities in Austria and Slovakia, in order to understand the differences in the climatic conditions and long term catchment characteristics using mean monthly seasonality indices and to explore the differences in the flood processes at the short term event scale. The seasonality of mean monthly precipitation and runoff was quantified by the Pardé coefficient and the seasonality of the maximum annual floods and annual maximum daily precipitation by applying the Burn’s index. Altogether 555 climate stations located in Austria and 202 climate stations in Slovakia were selected for analysis of mean monthly precipitation. Annual maximum daily precipitation was available at 520 and 56 climate stations, res-pectively. Mean monthly runoff values and maximum annual flood records were available at 258 and 85 gauging stations in Austria and Slovakia. Even though some of the selected stations have an incomplete series of daily records in the period 1961–2000, at least 34 years of complete observations are available from all the selected stations. The estimated seasonality indices were mapped and their spatial and time distribution was discussed. The results can give insight into the main flood producing processes in Austria and Slovakia