A prominent engineering problem is the estimation of design floods, necessary for river correction measures, torrent control, reservoirs, urban storm-sewer systems etc. If rainfall runoff models are used for one of these purposes a minimum requirement is to find adequate design precipitation values, temporal rainfall distributions and total rainfall of the design hyetograph. Hydrologists and meteorologists all over the world are confronted with this problem irrespective of different climate zones, special meteorological features and different rainfall characteristics and even on a smaller scale regional differences. In this paper some rainfall characteristics for extremely contrasting environments Oman in the Middle East arid zone (mean annual precipitation 100 mm and less) and Austria in a humid Alpine climate (mean annual precipitation between 300 and 2500 mm) are compared. Differences and similarities are discussed under the point of view of design precipitation. design precipitation, convective storm, hyetograph, Oman, Austria
