National Weather Service River Forecast System (NWSRFS)
The National Weather Service River Forecast System (NWSRFS), designed
for use in an operational environment, provides streamflow forecasts under
a variety of hydrological conditions in river basins ranging from small
systems to large and complex basins. The NWSRFS is used operationally at
all thirteen National Weather Service (NWS) River Forecast Centers (RFCs)
in the United States, and has been implemented in many countries. Some
of these implementations consist of more than a thousand data collection
stations and hundreds of forecast points. Providing both deterministic
and probabilistic forecast capabilities for short-term and long-term
forecasting, the NWSRFS offers flexibility in the hydrologic and
hydraulic models that can be used to model a basin.
Riverside Technology, inc. (RTi) has supported the NWS by implementing
the NWSRFS for applications ranging from emergency management and flood
control to planning and management operations for water supply and hydropower.
The firm has transferred NWS technology to numerous countries,
including the Central Asian Republics, the Czech Republic, Egypt,
|
NWS Interactive Forecast Program Display
|
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, South Africa and
Vietnam. These projects have involved project planning, data collection
and analysis, model calibration, forecast system setup, installation,
and training. Ancillary activities on some projects have included defining
daily operational forecasting procedures; defining forecast products and
establishing dissemination protocols; installing forecasting infrastructure
including field gages, computers, and local area networks; as well as
designing database and web page applications for forecast product
dissemination.
RTi also has performed data collection, analysis, and NWSRFS model
calibration for a number of NWS River Forecast Centers (RFCs), providing
results to RFCs in Taunton, MA, Tulsa, OK, Atlanta, GA, and Wilmington,
OH. RTi's NWSRFS support has involved collecting, analyzing, and preparing
data used as input to the NWSRFS models, as well as calibrating the models
to simulate snow accumulation and melt, rainfall-runoff, reservoir operations,
and hydraulic and hydrologic streamflow routing. Additional software
development and enhancements tasks in support of NWSRFS and related
forecasting activities have included:
- ESP Software Tools (ESPADP, Ensemble Pre-processor, ESP Verification)
- Interactive graphical interface for input to the FLDWAV dynamic routing model
- Forecast verification tools for the RFCs
- Methodology for generating precipitation frequency maps with GIS tools
- Enhancements to RES-J, a multi-reservoir operations model, with support and training
- Workshops to support a variety of forecasting activities
- Web-based training module
- GIS-based flood inundation mapping procedures and implementation
- Graphical user interface for NWSRFS daily operations and system maintenance
|
printable page
