The upper reaches of the Huai River in Central China are located in the East Asian monsoon region. Strong seasonality, as well as large interannual variability of rainfall, causes ¯oods and an uneven supply of water. In order to conserve the water and mitigate the ¯oods, dams and ¯ood protection structures are constructed. Their design requires information about the rainfall. Daily observations from 1957 to 1986 from 78 rain gauges were used to study shape, orientation, movement and geographical and seasonal occurrence of storms in the 79 000 km 2 study area. The rainfall characteristics were described using graphical plots, cross-and autocorrelation. Storms larger than 50 mm/day were found to occur from February to November, whereas storms exceeding 350 mm/day were con®ned to the main rainfall season from late June to mid-August. The southern part of the study area experienced a break in the rainfall season in late July, corresponding to the seasonal northward shift of the rain belt. A weekly periodicity of 7±8 days for rainfall was found during June±July, but not during August±September. During the whole period June±September, the spatial pattern of daily rainfall revealed an elongated shape, more pronounced during June±July than August±September. The rainfall area was orientated approximately from WSW to ENE during the whole period, and showed an anticlockwise rotation of about 168 per day during June±July. The cross-correlation analysis revealed that the rainfall area moved about 100 km/day eastward. These results and an investigation of meteorological maps indicate that the spatial correlation pattern of daily rainfall is produced by cold fronts on the Mei-Yu front. Suggestions are made as to how to use the results for the construction of design rainfalls in the study area.