| Client:
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U.S. National Weather Service |
| Region:
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North America
|
| Period:
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2002 – 2006 |
The National Weather Service (NWS) requires mean areal temperature (MAT) and mean areal precipitation (MAP) time series as inputs for modeling snow accumulation and ablation and the runoff response in a given basin.
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ABRFC Area of Responsibility
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A number of analyses are required to produce accurate and representative time series for use in the National Weather Service River Forecast System (NWSRFS). Working with the Arkansas/Red Basin River Forecast Center (ABRFC) on four separate projects, Riverside Technology, inc. (RTi) performed data analysis and developed MAT and MAP time series data for over 300 river basins in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri. The river basins included the Arkansas, the Canadian, the Verdigris, the Neosho, the Grand, the Washita, and the Red River. The four projects were conducted as part of the AHPS (Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Services) program being implemented at regional NWS River forecast centers.
RTi collected all the digital information necessary to perform the work, including data for over 1000 temperature and 1500 precipitation stations, basin boundaries, isohyetal maps, and copies of the ABRFC forecast system files and database. Through the use of NWS software, in-house data analysis tools, and Geographic Information
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Winter Precipitation Map for the
Canadian River Basin
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System (GIS) capabilities, RTi reviewed data quality and consistency and adjusted precipitation and temperature data as appropriate. Using these data, RTi generated MAPs using a modified Thiessen Polygon procedure in which station weights are adjusted to represent more accurately the spatial distribution of precipitation over a basin based on an isohyetal map. RTi generated MAT time series using an areal grid point weighting scheme or an elevation-distance based weighting scheme, depending on the relief of each basin. Time series for both data types were delivered to ABRFC for use in NWSRFS calibration activities.
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