The Three Gorges Reservoir area (TGRA), which is located in the hinterland of the Yangtze River Basin, is a typical area with frequent meteorological disasters and fragile ecological environment, especially the hourly heavy rainfall (HHR) in summer is prone to disasters due to suddenness and difficulty in prediction. Based on the hourly precipitation data in summer during 1992-2021 from the National Meteorological Information Center of China Meteorological Administration, the fine spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of HHR and heavy rainfall event (HRE) in the TGRA are investigated. The results show that the summer HHR in the TGRA has strong local features, its intensity is strong, and makes main contribution to total summer precipitation due to its high frequency. The southeastern TGRA is the center of summer HHR precipitation, frequency and intensity. In the past 30 years, the summer HHR precipitation in the TGRA has been non-significant increase. Both the diurnal variations of summer HHR precipitation and frequency in the TGRA show a bimodal pattern, with peaks appearing in the morning and afternoon, respectively, and the peak time phase is related to the terrain. Besides, the summer HREs in the TGRA are mainly short duration (1-6 hours), with precipitation mostly ranging from 20 to 60 mm, while the long duration (>12 hours) HREs seldom occur, with precipitation mostly ranging from 60 to 100 mm. Moreover, the short duration HREs mostly start in the afternoon, and most of their maximum hourly precipitation also occur in the afternoon, while the HREs with medium (7-12 hours) and long durations mostly start at night, and most of their maximum hourly precipitation occur in the morning.

In view of three rainstorm processes (“6·19”,“7·5” and “7·19” processes) during Meiyu period in Hubei Province in 2016, firstly, the sounding data of Hankou station were compared with the horizontal wind speed and wind direction from Hankou and Xianning wind profile radar stations. It was found that the horizontal wind speed below 3 km from Hankou wind profile radar station was close to sounding data in the “6·19” and “7·5” processes; the horizontal wind direction and wind speed below 8 km from Xianning wind profile radar station were basically consistent with the sounding data in the three processes. Combined with the data of conventional and encrypted automatic weather stations, the horizontal wind field, average vertical velocity and its variability, vertical shear of horizontal wind speed and atmospheric refractive index structure constant $C_{n}^{2}$ were analyzed by using wind profile radar. The results are as follows: (1) The southwest wind speed increased significantly before the beginning of precipitation. The invasion of dry and cold air in the middle layer and the mesoscale easterly air flow formed by the ground cold pool were the main reasons for the occurrence of strong winds with more than and equal to 17.2 m·s^-1 at 50 stations in the “6·19” process, and the long-term maintenance of the southwest jet and the easterly air flow below 1 km in the “7·5” and “7·19” processes were the inducements for the long duration of short-term heavy precipitation. (2) The vertical shear of horizontal wind speed, the variation of average vertical velocity and its variability with height observed by wind profile radar were small, and strong upward movement was mainly concentrated below 4 km height. (3) Before the occurrence of heavy precipitation, the atmospheric water vapor content had an increasing process, and the water vapor content in the whole layer was deep. The disappearance of the large value area of $C_{n}^{2}$ corresponded to the end of precipitation.