Preferential flow in fractured soil is governed by soil physical properties as well as rainfall characteristics such as storm intensity, storm duration and interstorm period. A simple two-domain bucket model of a fractured/macro-porous soil was used to investigate rainfall partitioning into runoff, fracture flow and matrix flow in response to single and multiple rainfall events. Runoff and preferential flow events are identified as threshold filtering processes. Analytical criteria were defined in terms of input soil and climate properties which accurately describe the statistical properties of the modelled hydrological response, as well as the cumulative volumetric partitioning of rainfall between matrix infiltration, fracture infiltration and surface runoff. Failure to simulate precipitation at a sufficiently small temporal scale (i.e. the storm scale, or sub-storm scale) will result in the under-prediction of fracture flow and surface runoff frequency and magnitude.