Estimation of rainfall intensity and spatial distribution based on data collected by automated weather stations and radar systems

The Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department of the University of Georgia has developed the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network(AEMN). This network constists of more than 40 meteorological stations located across the state of Georgia. Each station is equipped with an automated tipping bucket rain gauge. The system provides very accurate rainfall observations for point locations. Using daily percipitaion, we can determine the mean regional precipitation. There are several methods, including Thiesen, Inverse Distance Weighting and Spline methods, for interpolation of rainfall between point observations. However, these methods do not provide an adequate estimation for spatial distribution of rainfall for short time intervals. A second source for rainfall data is Doppler Radar Meteorological Observation (WSR-88D) network. This system provides spatial rainfall distribution for entire state. Unfortunately there are still errors associated with the quantitative estimation of rainfall using radar techniques, especially for the southeastern of USA. This project studied various methods to merge daily values of quantitative measurements from rain gauges and spatian distribution of rainfall determined by the radar network. This paper will discuss both the quantitative amounts as well as the spatial distribution of rainfall based on different observational and analysis methods.