Tuesday, 11 February 2003: 9:15 AM
Quantitative flood forecasts based on short-term radar nowcasting
Improvements to traditional flood forecasting can be made through
the integration of short-term radar nowcasting and distributed
hydrologic modeling. For short-lead times (0-3 hrs), the extrapolation
of NEXRAD-based rainfall estimates can improve the lead time and
accuracy available for issuing flood forecasts as compared to
rainfall persistence or climatology. Distributed models explicitly
account for rainfall variability and provide forecasts of the lumped
and distributed basin response after appropriate calibration. In this paper,
we present the use of the MIT Lincoln Lab Growth and Decay Stormtracker
(GDST) as a quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) input to the
MIT TIN-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator (tRIBS). Flood
forecasts issued by the distributed model based on the extrapolation
QPF are developed for two adjacent watersheds within the Arkansas Red
River Basin for selected storms within the 1998-2001 period. Comparisons
to observed streamflows at the watershed outlet and interior gauging
stations demonstrate the utility of the nowcasting product. An
analysis of the error propagation from the extrapolation product through
the flood forecast is also presented as a function of forecast lead time.
Finally, the impact of storm, basin and radar rainfall scales for
the case studies is discussed.
Supplementary URL: http://hydrology.mit.edu/tRIBS/