Bonneville Power Administration Streamflow Forecast System

Riverside Technology, inc. (RTi) developed and implemented an operational streamflow forecast system for the Columbia River Basin for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) in conjunction with Harza Northwest, Inc. This system is based on the operational National Weather Service River Forecast System (NWSRFS), which includes conceptual hydrologic models for snow cover simulation and soil moisture accounting, as well as hydrologic and dynamic streamflow routing models and a reservoir operations model. The system incorporates historical, current, and future meteorological and hydrologic conditions and provides forecast information for daily operations and seasonal planning purposes. Users are able to graphically examine meteorologic and hydrologic conditions throughout the basin, run models to simulate streamflow responses to precipitation and temperature, and analyze the results for the specified forecast window. Until October of 1997, BPA’s forecast system included the Hydrometeorological Evaluation Data Display System (HEDDS) program,

Hydrometeorological Evaluation Data Display System

which allows current and forecasted hydrometeorological data to be displayed with geographical information, such as rivers, basin boundaries, and political boundaries. The original program was developed by the National Weather Service (NWS), and has since been replaced. RTi enhanced the original version and continued to make improvements for BPA. Since October of 1997, the operational platform for BPA’s system has been an HP9000 running UP-UX. Because this configuration is compatible with the official NWS supported platform, BPA has been able to take advantage of upgrades and new software from NWS. These have included ESPADP, developed by RTi for the NWS, and the Interactive Calibration Program.

2290 East Prospect Road, Suite 1, Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
phone: (970) 484–7573  fax: (970) 484–7593 www.riverside.com