Comparison of National Weather Service River Forecast Center OperationalPrecipitation Processing Methodologies

摘要

The Arkansas-Red Basin River Forecast Center (ABRFC) is tasked with monitoringthe hydrometeorolgical state of the Arkansas and Red Rivers from their headwaters in the Colorado and New Mexico Rocky Mountains to Pine Bluff, AR and Fulton, AR, respectively. These 200,000 plus square miles of drainage range from the 14,000-foot peaks of the Continental Divide in Colorado through the Southern Plains towards the Mississippi River Valley. Since July 1994, the ABRFC has utilized Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) and observed precipitation amounts to create gridded precipitation estimates for its area of responsibility. The addition of WSR-88D precipitation estimates to the precipitation processing procedure gives a spatial resolution to rainfall distribution that is not available when using gauge-only estimates. These processed precipitation estimates are meticulously quality-controlled by the Hydrometerolotical Analysis and Support (HAS) forcasters at the ABRFC to create the most accurate estimate of precipitation available. How this is done is described in the following sections.