Abstract (from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-015-2517-1): Daily precipitation variability as observed from weather stations is heavy tailed at most locations around the world. It is thought that diversity in precipitation-causing weather events is fundamental in producing heavy-tailed distributions, and it arises from theory that at least one of the precipitation types contributing to a heavy-tailed climatological record must also be heavy-tailed. Precipitation is a multi-scale phenomenon with a rich spatial structure and short decorrelation length and timescales; the spatiotemporal scale at which precipitation is observed is thus an important factor when considering its statistics and extremes. In this study, we [...]