Extreme dry spell detection and climatology over the Mediterranean Basin during the wet season

The E-OBS precipitation gridded data set v.10.0 is used to detect very long dry spell (VLDS) events over the entire Mediterranean Basin for the 1957-2013 period, during the wet season (September to April). The main objective is to characterize these events as climatic objects, in terms of location, spatial extent, duration, and temporal variability. In this study, 76 VLDS events were detected in the Mediterranean Basin and grouped into four spatial patterns: scattered localized (with 25 events), northeast Mediterranean (11 events), West Mediterranean (15 events), and southeast Mediterranean (25 events). Each pattern shows seasonality in events. Most of the scattered localized, northeast, and southeast events begin in September, at the beginning of the wet season. In contrast, most of the West Mediterranean events begin in the middle of the wet season. Over time, there is a slight but not significant increase in the cumulative number of days per season affected by VLDS events.