Cluster analysis of rainfall stations of the Indian peninsula

Principal component analysis is applied to derive patterns of temporal variation of the rainfall at fifty-three stations in peninsular India. The location of the stations in the coordinate space determined by the amplitudes of the two leading eigenvectors is used to delineate them into eight clusters. The clusters obtained seem to be stable with respect to variations in the grid of stations used. Stations within any cluster occur in geographically contiguous areas.