DETERMINATION OF SPACE-TIME PATTERNS AND RAINFALL HOMOGENEOUS AREAS AT MINAS GERAIS STATE

The present study aimed to determine the spatial and temporal rainfall in Minas Gerais State relating to their respective rainfall weather systems and to identify homogeneous regions. The method of Factorial Analysis in Principal Components and Hierarchical Grouping were used to determine the seasonal and spatial patterns and homogeneous groups of rainfall. It was observed that the three first principal components describe 80.4% of the total variance of rainfall observed, in that the first factor explains 34.3% of the variance and showed high correlations with the rains from December to April in the southern State, which is influenced, mainly by the performance of frontal systems. The second factor explains 26.6% of data variance and showed significant correlations with rainfall from May to September in the northwest and southwest, and is possibly related to cold fronts and the South Atlantic Convergence Zone. Finally, the relative contributions to the third factor, with 19.5% of data variance accounted for the months of October and November, and are associated with mesoscale and microscale systems. Four homogeneous regions in relation to seasonal and interannual variability of rainfall were found. It concludes that statistical methods tested showed satisfactory results for this type of analyze, corroborates previous studies.