Due to the deficiency of international-unified theoretical function for rainfall probability distribution, it is necessary to analyze the applicability, appropriateness and universality of commonly used probability density function(PDF). On the basis of summarizing the characteristics of three kinds of "class conditional probability density" of hourly rainfall, the applicability of 20 kinds of functions is theoretically analyzed and compared. The generalized Gamma distribution(GΓD), generalized normal distribution(GND) and Weibull distributions are selected as reference functions, and the genetic algorithm and genetic algorithms are used to carry out fitting experiments. When the fitting deviation is equivalent to the observation error, a necessary condition for the appropriateness of the theoretical distribution function is used for discriminant analysis. The fitting results show that the Weibull distribution performs worst, the GΓD has the smallest fitting deviation, and the GND performs best. Therefore the GND is recommended for theoretical distribution fitting. In addition, the genetic algorithm can directly obtain the optimal approximate solution through multi-objective parameter optimization, which can simplify the derivation and calculation steps. The multiplicative and additive deviation models are both used as objective functions, which can take the beginning and the end of fitting curves, as well as the absolute and relative deviations into account.