Using the daily precipitation data from 78 meteorological stations over East China, the spatial distribution and temporal variation trend of the rainfall frequency and total amount have been analyzed under 5 different grades according to rainfall daily amount with linear trend and correlation analysis. The results show that summer daily rainfall frequency under different grades has spatial differences over East China. Areal average frequencies of event occurrence in an apparent descending order are light rain, micro rain, moderate rain, heavy rain, and torrential rain. The mean climatology of summer total rainfall presents the distribution of larger rainfall amount in the south and less in the north. Impressively,the contribution of precipitation under different grades is contrary to the total precipitation. Contribution of torrential rain to the total rainfall is almost up to 50% in some years. Regional mean occurrence frequency of occurrence and amount of summer rainfall change yearly with a significant long-term trend, the number of rainy-day in summer is decreasing while the regional mean total precipitation is increasing during the studying period. When regional mean precipitation frequency anomaly for a certain grade is positive, the composite precipitation frequency for this grade also tends to be positive all over East China, especially for the rainfall heavier than moderate rain. Significant negative correlations are found between micro rain (light rain) and other precipitation grades over East China. However,no significant relationship exists among moderate rain, heavy rain and torrential rain.