Heatwaves are prolonged periods of excessively hot weather, which can be detrimental to everything from agriculture to human health. Hydroclimatologists use specific metrics to quantify and analyze these events. This blog explores the most commonly used heatwave metrics, their definitions, and how they are calculated. I have also provided the python functions to calculate these metrices.
Popular Heatwave Metrics
1. Exceedance
- Definition: The simplest heatwave metric, exceedance, measures the number of days the temperature exceeds a certain threshold.
- Calculation:
- Choose a temperature threshold relevant to the region (e.g., 95th percentile of historical daily temperatures).
- Count the number of consecutive days the temperature exceeds this threshold.
2. Heatwave Duration Index (HDI)
- Definition: HDI quantifies the duration of heatwaves over a season or year.
- Calculation:
- Identify all periods within a season when daily maximum temperatures exceed the 90th percentile (calculated from a reference period).
- Calculate the total number of days in these periods.
3. Heatwave Frequency Index (HFI)
- Definition: HFI measures the frequency of heatwaves over a specified period.
- Calculation:
- Using the same temperature threshold as HDI, count the number of separate heatwave events in a season.
4. Heatwave Intensity or Heatwave Magnitude Index Daily (HWMId)
- Definition: This index quantifies the magnitude of heatwaves by integrating the intensity of heatwave days.
- Calculation:
- Sum the differences between daily maximum temperatures and the threshold (same as used in HDI) for all heatwave days in the season.
5. Excess Heat Factor (EHF)
- Definition: EHF is a more complex metric that considers both the intensity and the relative unusualness of a heatwave.
- Calculation:
- Calculate the 3-day average of daily maximum temperatures.
- Compare this to both the climatological norm (mean temperature for those dates, calculated over a long-term period) and the acclimatization (mean of the last 30 days).
- EHF is computed as the product of these comparisons, indicating both the severity and the anomaly of the heatwave conditions.
Please let me know your thoughts. These are the by far most popular metrics I have seen in research articles. If you have came across other metrics, Please comment down below.