Rainfall Analysis Annual Total Rainfall Annual total rainfall figures were used in analysis.

The total rainfall was obtained from the sum of monthly totals for each year. In order to obtain the annual total, the monthly total per year for each station was summed. The statistical formula followed was: = Where = annual rainfall total = monthly rainfall Average annual rainfall The average which is also known as the arithmetic mean is given by the sum of an array of numbers divided by the total number of observations in that array (Norcliffe, 1977). The average annual rainfall per station was calculated based on this by adding up the yearly total rainfall and then dividing by the number of years (30 years) n for each station. The statistical formulae used to calculate the mean was:
x=

Equation 3.1

x
n

Equation 3.3

Where:

x = mean
xi = annual rainfall

n = number of years (30) 3.3.1.4 5-Year Moving Average To establish the temporal rainfall changes in the Soutpansberg, the data was first subjected to a 5-year moving average in order to filter out the El Nino and La Nina (ENSO phenomena) which can obscure the signal of climate change. The moving average analysis tool projects values in the forecast period, based on the average value of the variable over a specific number of preceding periods. A moving average provides trend information that a simple average of all

historical data would mask. In studies involving detecting rainfall changes, the moving average is a traditional process that is used for long term trend depiction (Sneyers, 1992). 3.3.1.5 Z-Test Statistical analysis of difference between rainfall means per rainfall station was carried out. The z-test was used to compare the means and determine if there is a significant difference in the composite rainfall on the northern and southern slopes. The significance level was set at 0.05 (5%). The formulae used as expressed by Goddard and Melville (2001): Z= ( xi ) Where: z = standardized value = standard deviation of the probability distribution of xi = long term mean The standard deviation of the data was calculated using the formula: Equation 3.5 Where: = Standard deviation
xi = annual rainfall total

Equation 3.4

= long term mean n = Number of data