CHARACTERIZATION OF THE TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION DIURNAL CYCLE IN A TROPICAL ANDEAN CITY

Andean tropical cities show bimodal behavior in precipitation, strongly influenced by the ZCIT Intertropical Confluence Zone, which has been widely studied and documented. However, the characterization of the diurnal cycles is less frequent due to the scarce intraday information, although this can contribute to a better knowledge of the region and is valuable information for the establishment of environmental baselines, especially in urban areas. This study proposes the characterization of the diurnal cycle in the city of Manizales, using 14 stations of the landslides risk management network of the city, which has data on precipitation and temperature for the period 2002-2018, taken every five minutes. The following results were found for the precipitation: bimodality in the maximum hourly precipitations, well determined for the majority of the stations analyzed, which occurs between 2:00 - 5:00 a.m. and 14:00-16:00 p.m., minimum differences in the hours of maximum precipitation for each diurnal cycle and increase in maximum rainfall from east to west. For the temperatures, unimodality was found in the maximum temperature for all the stations with maximum values between 13:00 - 15:00 p.m. in general, with values that oscillate between 13 and 23 °C.