Analysis of precipitation series for Belgrade

Summary Precipitation is a very variable climatic element. It is highly variable, both spatially and temporally at different scales (interannual and intra-annual). The search for cyclicity in the climatic record can resolve some of the complexities of the atmospheric system. This paper takes the example of the Belgrade precipitation series (1889–2000) to illustrate how trend and spectral analysis can provide information on climate variability as expressed through this particular variable.The annual, seasonal and monthly precipitation series of the Belgrade-Observatory station were analyzed by means of the Mann-Kendall test and the spectral analysis. The power spectra were calculated using the autocorrelation spectral analysis, the maximum entropy spectral analysis and the multitaper method.The influence of large-scale phenomena such as the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the Belgrade precipitation series was investigated.