Spatial Assessment of Five Years of WSR-88D Data over the Mississippi River Basin and Its Estimation Bias around Rain Gauge Sites
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 2
Abstract
Statistical analyses were performed using five years (1996–2000) of Weather Surveillance Radar–1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) weather-radar rainfall estimates that were produced for the Global-Continental Scale International Project over the entire Mississippi River basin. The project radar rainfall estimates were adjusted using a - relation optimized to improve performance at the time scale of individual storms. The accuracy of radar-rainfall estimates were analyzed during the warm season considering a number of factors, including number of overlapping radars, distance from gauge to nearest radar, gauge elevation, and the geographic location of the radar. Results were used to identify optimal radar-rainfall estimation areas (ORREAs) within the Mississippi River basin with high correlation between storm-total radar and rain gauge rainfall. Additionally, estimation of the bias between storm-total radar-rainfall and rain gauge rainfall accumulations in areas without gauges was assessed to identify the appropriateness of applying bias adjustments derived from gauge data at points away from those rain gauges.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Anagnostou, E. N., Krajewski, W. F., Seo, D. J., and Johnson, E. R. (1998). “Mean-field rainfall bias studies for WSR-88D.” J. Hydrologic Eng., 3(3), 149–159.
Austin, P. (1987). “Relation between measured radar reflectivity and surface rainfall.” Mon. Weather Rev., 115(5), 1053–1070.
Battan, L. J. (1973). Radar observation of the atmosphere, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Ciach, G. J., Krajewski, W. F., and Villarini, G. (2007). “Product-error-driven uncertainty model for probabilistic quantitative precipitation estimation with NEXRAD data.” J. Hydrometeor., 8(6), 1325–1347.
Crum, T. D., and Alberty, R. L. (1993). “The WSR-88D and the WSR-88D operational support facility.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 74(9), 1669–1687.
Crum, T. D., Alberty, R. L., and Burgess, D. W. (1993). “Recording, archiving, and using WSR-88D data.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 74(4), 645–653.
Harrison, D. L., Driscoll, S. J., and Kitchen, M. (2000). “Improving precipitation estimates from weather radar using quality control and correction techniques.” Meteorol. Appl., 7(2), 135–144.
Hayter, A. J. (1986). “The maximum familywise error rate of Fisher’s least significant difference test.” J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 81(396), 1001–1004.
Hirsch, R. M., Helsel, D. R., Cohn, T. A., and Gilroy, E. J. (1992). “Statistical analysis of hydrologic data.” Handbook of hydrology, D. R. Maidment, ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 17.1–17.55.
Johnson, D., Smith, M., Koren, V., and Finnerty, B. (1999). “Comparing mean areal precipitation estimates from NEXRAD and rain gauge networks.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 4(2), 117–124.
Kitchen, M., and Blackall, R. M. (1992). “Representativeness errors in comparisons between radar and gauge measurements of rainfall.” J. Hydrol., 134(1–4), 13–33.
Kruskal, W. H., and Wallis, W. A. (1952). “Use of ranks in one-criterion variance analysis.” J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 47(260), 583–621.
Krzysztofowicz, R. (1992). “Bayesian correlation score: A utilitarian measure of forecast skill.” Mon. Weather Rev., 120(1), 208–219.
Landel, G., Smith, J. A., Baeck, M. L., Steiner, M., and Ogden, F. L. (1999). “Radar studies of heavy convective rainfall in mountainous terrain.” J. Geophys. Res., 104(D24), 31451–31465.
Nelson, B. R., Krajewski, W. F., Kruger, A., Smith, J. A., and Baeck, M. L. (2003). “Archival precipitation data set for the Mississippi River Basin: Algorithm development.” J. Geophys. Res., 108(D22), 8857.
Ogden, F. L., Sharif, H. O., Senarath, S. U. S., Smith, J. A., Baeck, M. L., and Richardson, J. R. (2000). “Hydrologic analysis of the Fort Collins, Colorado, flash flood of 1997.” J. Hydrol., 228(1–2), 82–100.
Rogalus, M. J., III, and Ogden, F. L. (2007). “Comparison of GCIP and stage III weather radar rainfall estimates over the Mississippi River Basin for 1997.” J. Hydrol., 341(3–4), 177–185.
Seo, D. J., Breidenbach, J. P., and Johnson, E. R. (1999). “Real-time estimation of mean field bias in radar rainfall data.” J. Hydrol., 223(3–4), 131–147.
Sharif, H. O., Ogden, F. L., Krajewski, W. F., and Xue, M. (2002). “Numerical simulations of radar rainfall error propagation.” Water Resour. Res., 38(8), 1–14.
Smith, J. A., Bradley, A. A., and Baeck, M. L. (1994). “The space-time structure of extreme storm rainfall in the Southern Plains.” J. Appl. Meteorol., 33(12), 1402–1417.
Smith, J. A., and Krajewski, W. F. (1993). “A modeling study of rainfall rate-reflectivity relationships.” Water Resour. Res., 29(8), 2505–2514.
Smith, J. A., Seo, D. J., Baeck, M. L., and Hudlow, M. D. (1996). “An intercomparison study of NEXRAD precipitation estimates.” Water Resour. Res., 32(7), 2035–2045.
Steiner, M., Smith, J. A., Burges, S. J., Alonso, C. V., and Darden, R. W. (1999). “Effect of bias adjustment and rain gauge data quality control on radar rainfall estimation.” Water Resour. Res., 35(8), 2487–2503.
USGS. (1996). Global 30-arc second elevation data set, Eros Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD.
Villarini, G., and Krajewski, W. F. (2008). “Empirically-based modeling of spatial sampling uncertainties associated with rainfall measurements by rain gages.” Adv. Water Resour., 31(7), 1015–1023.
Villarini, G., and Krajewski, W. F. (2010). “Review of the different sources of uncertainty in single-polarization radar-based estimates of rainfall.” Surv. Geophys., 31(1), 107–129.
Wilson, J. W., and Brandes, E. A. (1979). “Radar measurement of rainfall—A summary.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 60(9), 1048–1058.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18 • Issue 2 • February 2013
Pages: 212 - 218
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 17, 2011
Accepted: Apr 23, 2012
Published online: Apr 25, 2012
Published in print: Feb 1, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.