The absence of pluviographs at rainfall stations and of long historical rainfall series has made engineers use methods to estimate critical rainfall based on pluviometer data. Daily observational rainfall series, available in some cities in Goiás, were used to evaluate the performance of three methods used to estimate maximum rainfall associated with its duration and frequency: rainfall disaggregation, isozones and Bell's method. The performance of the three methods was evaluated using the Willmott performance index, which allows the analysis of the differences between values estimated by the methods and those obtained from precipitation-duration-frequency relations adjusted using pluviograms. Among the three methods, isozones presented better performance, followed by rainfall disaggregation. Bell's method was adequate at estimating maximum rainfall with small durations, representing an interesting alternative for estimating critical rainfall for engineering projects.
rainfall; deaggregation; isozones; Bell's model
