Using WRF-Hydro v5.0 for Operational, Highly Localized Land Surface and Streamflow Predictions

The Jefferson Project at Lake George, NY is a multi-year collaborative project between IBM Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and The FUND for Lake George. A core component of the project is to develop a system capable of real-time observations and interactive modeling of the atmosphere, watershed hydrology and lake circulation and biology. The recent release of WRF-Hydro v5.0 has compelled its inclusion in a coupled-model system designed by IBM Research that simulates the aforementioned components of the Lake George environment. Observations from an intelligent network of tributary sensors have enabled a detailed calibration of WRF-Hydro and Noah-MP, and the implementation of data assimilation via nudging. The positive impact of calibration and assimilation is demonstrated via results from a heavy rainfall event and the 2017 Spring seasonal snowmelt. A critical consideration in the design of the coupled-model system is for it to be engineered for rapid deployment in other geographic settings. Including the new WRF-Hydro modeling system in a rapid deployment framework presents various challenges, including the automated development of a reliable stream network, which will be discussed.