Extended Abstract (248K)4.5
Comparison of weather data from the Remote Automated Weather Station network and the North American Regional Reanalysis
Beth L. Hall, DRI, Reno, NV; and T. J. Brown
The North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) is an assimilated dataset at a 32-km spatial and 3-hour temporal resolution. It has offered an opportunity to estimate missing and erroneous data from other atmospheric datasets due to its completeness. Based upon multiple data sets such as rawindondes, aircraft, and surface weather stations, NARR assimilates this data into modeled output. However, one of the datasets that NARR does not include is from the Remote Automated Weather Station (RAWS) network. This is a network of over 2000 currently active weather stations throughout the US. It is operated by federal and state agencies for the dominant use of wildfire applications. Therefore, many of these stations are placed in high-elevation and/or remote locations. The Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system is a multi-agency effort to plan, budget, and evaluate the effectiveness of alternative fire management strategies, and is highly dependent upon historical weather data from fire prone regions. Unfortunately, RAWS data has periods of missing and/or erroneous values for each station in the network, and FPA requires a complete weather dataset of best possible data. Therefore, the NARR dataset has been integrated statistically with the RAWS data for FPA. Since RAWS was not used as one of the input datasets in NARR, the correlations between NARR and RAWS are not always strong. This analysis correlates temperature, humidity, precipitation, solar radiation, and wind data between NARR and RAWS at varying spatial and temporal scales. The results are intended to be informative on the discrepancies and similarities that occur when mid- and high-elevation, remote location weather data are not integrated fully with an assimilated dataset.
Session 4, Improving Climate Data Records Using Reference-Quality In Situ Upper-Air Observations II
Tuesday, 16 January 2007, 3:30 PM-5:00 PM, 207A
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