Using Radar Estimated Precipitation as Inputs to Rainfall-Runoff Models

Rainfall-runoff models used in Bureau of Reclamation flood analyses require a variety of input data, such as, but not limited to, precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, wind speed, and freezing-level height.  Precipitation data are important for these models because the spatial pattern and temporal distributions can define the extent and magnitude of the hydrologic response within a specified watershed.  Radar data can provide both high spatial resolution (less than 1 km) and rapid temporal resolution (less than 10 minutes) in areas of the western US where beam blockage isn’t a problem.  Using the NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit allows for a straight forward methodology to download radar data and transform it into a useable format in ArcGIS.  Once in ArcGIS, the radar data can be used to create spatial and temporal storm patterns for use in both lumped and gridded rainfall-runoff models.  An example of the temporal and spatial storm patterns that can be created using this methodology will be presented.