Assessment of a class of Neyman- Scott models for temporal rainfall

Neyman-Scott type cluster point processes have been used in several studies to model temporal rainfall at a single location. In this paper we study the applicability of such models with the rainfall thought of as instantaneous bursts at the points of the Neyman-Scott proces. We find that this class of models does not provide adequate fit to some observed rainfall series. We also discuss some estimation problems associated with the fitting procedure, and examine the importance and appropriateness of the distributional assumptions made in the modelling. -Authors