Abstract
A National Vision for Use of Spatially Distributed Precipitation Data
Track: Water Resources
Author(s): David Curtis
The growing national data base of spatially distributed radar rainfall data offers an incredibly rich opportunity to mine information about the detailed structure of storms and local climate. Nationally, nearly every hydrologic design standard has been derived from point rain gage data and each suffers from all the biases associated with extending point rainfall estimation to areal process. New insights gained from analyzing high resolution radar rainfall on a large scale over an extended time, have the ability to significantly impact all current hydrologic design standards affecting trillions of dollars of constructed facilities.
This paper will review advances in national radar rainfall data sets through the last decade, identify some of the critical issues facing radar rainfall analysts, discuss emerging applications for spatially distributed rainfall, and discuss implications of radar rainfall data sets in hydrologic design.
David Curtis
Carlton Engineering
3883 Ponderosa Road
Shingle Springs , California 95682
United States
Phone: 530-677-5515
E-mail: dcurtis@carlton-engineering.com