Based on daily and annual precipitation recorded at twenty-six meteorological stations in Qinghai Province from 1960 to 2009

regression analysis

inverse distance weighted method and Mann-Kendall method were employed to analyze the spatial and temporal variability in extreme precipitation events. The re-suits indicated that extreme precipitation days

annual maximum 1 d precipitation

annual maximum consecu-tive 5 d precipitation

very heavy precipitation days and daily rainfall intensity showed increasing trends in the recent 50 years

and only the extreme precipitation days were significant at the 0.05 level. The spatial change of precipitation extreme events in the study area showed that extreme precipitation days

annual max-imum 1 d precipitation

annual maximum consecutive 5 d precipitation

very heavy precipitation days and dai-ly rainfall intensity in Qilian Mountains had statistically increasing trends while they increased or decreased insignificantly in eastern region. In addition

it was also found that abrupt changes presented in precipitation extreme events at the 0.05 level. At the same time

there were significant correlations between annual total precipitation and different precipitation indices.